MIT's Operating System Engineering course formerly used the original V6 source code. xv6 was created as a modern replacement, because PDP-11 machines are not widely available and the original operating system was written in archaic pre-ANSI C. Unlike Linux or BSD, xv6 is simple enough to cover in a semester, yet still contains the important concepts and organization of Unix.[1]
Self-documentation
One feature of the Makefile for xv6 is the option to produce a PDF of the entire source code listing in a readable format. The entire printout is only 99 pages, including cross references.[2] This is reminiscent of the original V6 source code, which was published in a similar form in Lions' Commentary on UNIX 6th Edition, with Source Code.
Educational use
xv6 has been used in operating systems courses at many universities, including:
^"Operativni sistemi 2 - Projektni zadatak" (in Serbian). Archived from the original on September 22, 2020. Retrieved 2021-11-20. Zadatak studenta je da izmeni deo operativnog sistem xv6 tako da podrži raspoređivače čije je opis dat u ovom projektu.