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Operating Systems Software

Want To Write Your Own OS? 129

Posted by Hemos from the a-trivial-task dept.
DJSlakoR writes "Looks like the Nocturnal Network has a tutorial on how to get started coding your own operating system. A very interesting read!"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Want To Write Your Own OS? More

Want To Write Your Own OS?

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  • Want To Write Your Own OS? No. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mensa Babe ( 675349 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @07:03AM (#6210822) Homepage Journal

    As someone, who has some experience in this field, I can assure you, that the correct answer to the question "Want To Write Your Own OS?" is "No, you certainly do not." Of course, it looks great at the beginning when you code a first working bootloader, then it's a great joy when your first single-tasking kernel can run its first process, et cetera. But as soon as you start working on the multitasking, decent scheduling, threads, multiple processes, file system, networking, writing an optimizing compiler and assembler suited for your platform, while constantly keeping security in mind, it soon becomes more work than using mature systems, like Open BSD or Debian, or even Gentoo. Don't get me wrong, I think everyone should write few toy operating systems, that's the only way one can learn the craft, but don't expect that your OS will soon become better than the systems already available, because they are bloated, while yours wouldn't be. This is a myth, and quite misleading at that, to say the very least. Still, this is great news (even if not actually new to anyone experienced).

    • So what? Many people wanna hack into computer just because hacking is interesting. They do that just for fun. Writing someone's own OS can quench his/her thirst of knowledge.
      • RTFP. If you had, you'd see that the parent to your post mentioned that.

      • [...] it looks great at the beginning when you code a first working bootloader, then it's a great joy when your first single-tasking kernel can run its first process, et cetera [...] I think everyone should write few toy operating systems, that's the only way one can learn the craft [...]

        So what? Many people wanna hack into computer just because hacking is interesting. They do that just for fun. Writing someone's own OS can quench his/her thirst of knowledge.

        You seem to have completely failed to

        • Just because someone doesn't agree with you, doesn't mean they are stupid, you PoS ...

          • Just because someone doesn't agree with you, doesn't mean they are stupid, you PoS ...

            Certainly, disagreeing with me doesn't imply stupidity, indeed. Agreeing with me, but still arguing because of failing to understand my words â" does. After reading your comment, posted as an answer to my explanation of this very matter, I do not even hope you to understand that, though. As a sidenote, I might add, that using invectives hidden behing acronyms, does not strengthen your argument even a slightest

            • no... you just reminded of the first OS I have written, it's named PoS. It wasn't very good, nor secure, nor even practical. But I did have loads of fun doing it, and learnt some real-time programming concepts. There's nothing like spending fourty hours on fourty lines of assembly to get the context switching to work.

              • no... you just reminded of the first OS I have written, it's named PoS. It wasn't very good, nor secure, nor even practical. But I did have loads of fun doing it, and learnt some real-time programming concepts. There's nothing like spending fourty hours on fourty lines of assembly to get the context switching to work.

                Please don't lie to me. We both know what you meant by calling me "P. o. S." You are now trying to change the subject to something which I like and enjoy, so I could forget about public

                • oh man... it's just a play of words, an overloaded meaning ...

                  PoS

                  - when applied to an A** hole like yourself, it' s "piece of shit"

                  - when applied to my crappy operating system, it's a "piece of shit OS", get it??

                  Why do you feel the need to use overly complicated sentence constructs when simplier ones will convey your meaning more effectively?

                  Why do you feel the need to belittle others whom you consider to be less intelligent than yourself?

                  • oh man... it's just a play of words, an overloaded meaning ... PoS - when applied to an A** hole like yourself, it' s "piece of shit"

                    You are just not going to stop insulting me, are you?

                    Why do you feel the need to use overly complicated sentence constructs when simplier ones will convey your meaning more effectively?

                    Have you ever stop to think, that complex sentences might actually have more meaning, than the simple ones? Do you think, that intelligent people don't talk like little chil

                    • To put it in a programming context, just because one has the ability to understand 5 levels of pointer indirection, doesn't mean one should use it. Language is used to communicating with other people, it should be put as simple as possible, but no simplier.
                    • If you felt you had been misunderstood, then here is a clue:

                      The title of your post claims that writing one's OS is not a good idea, and the first half of your post gave a few support statements for that claim. Fine. Everyone is entitlied to their opinion and I happen to agree with yours.

                      Now, in the SAME paragraph, you proceed to give counter reasons to your original claim, that there may be good reasons for writing one's OS for learning purposes. I also happen to agree. Presumably, you were trying to
                    • Have you ever stop to think, that complex sentences might actually have more meaning, than the simple ones? Do you think, that intelligent people don't talk like little children, just because they want to sound "cool"? You are very wrong.

                      Part of your problem is that you add unnecessary (and sometimes grammatically incorrect) commas. As a learning exercise, try reading the sentence aloud, pausing whenever you reach a comma.

                      Your sentence I quoted would be said:
                      Have you ever stopped to think... that complex
                    • Instead of misquoting Albert Einstein, you might finally agree, that I was right from the very beginning of this childish conversation.
                    • You have yet to make one rational argument to defend your claims.

                      If you believe this conversation is childish, then I encounrage you to stop.
                    • I think you have a right to think that, however upsettining it might be to me, I am unable to put my ideas in an intelligent form. Fair enough. That's your right. But I am not quite sure why do you use so much of your time, just to insult me. Is that entertaining to hurt women's feelings? I hope it was worth all your trouble. I wish you good luck with insulting other women. I am sure they will be very pleased by your nice attitude.
                    • How convenient. You encourage me to stop, while you have the last word. Bravo.
                    • Thank you for acknowledging the possiblity that the miscommunication may be partially your fault.

                      I simply expect mensa members to appeal to reason and critical thinking, nothing more.

                      Hurting women's feelings is no worse (and no better) than hurting men's feelings, and I believe treating women any differently in this regard would be discriminatory, and sexist.

                      Furthermore, you don't know me, nor my gender, nor my sexual preferences. So lay off the "I am sensitive, and helpless" crap. People like you onl
                    • ok you win.

                    • People like you only encourage the negative sterotypes of women.

                      You didn't have to say that. If you think that I am the worst woman on Earth, then why on Earth is it so important for you to keep insulting me, one time after another? Do you enjoy it? Don't you have a life?

                    • You have spent as much time reading and replying my "insults", as I have posted them. I claim that my amount of "life" is \geq than yours.
                    • And of course you'd like me to not defend at all and let you insult me however you like? Truely amazing. I must congratulate you for the most convenient attitude I have ever seen in my life.

                    • I have read a lot of her comments and from those, I deduce (from a layman's perspective) that "Mensa Babe" suffers from an acute narcissistic personallity disorder. It is pointless to continue this bickering, it is going nowhere.

                      Layman's perspective? It looks more like a lamer perspective to me... *sigh*

        • Maybe a paragraph or two in your original post would've helped a bit...

          • Maybe a paragraph or two in your original post would've helped a bit...

            I'm sorry, but my post (very original, indeed) was being directed to people, with no reading difficulties. Next time, I will try to write short paragraphs, with very few simple sentences, built with only single-syllable words. Will you be satisfied then? Because, as I clearly see, you are all attacking me in every imaginable way, except talking about the meritum, which I find annoingly immature, to say the very least.

    • Re:Want To Write Your Own OS? No. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) * on Monday June 16, 2003 @11:12AM (#6213285)
      I have been considering doing this, not because i want a usable OS, but because I want to learn how the hell its actually done! Sure enough i can look at mature code, but from other peoples code you learn significantly less than breaking stuff yourself. By doing it yourself you can learn WHY certain things are done in a certain method, and what doesnt work etc.
    • but what to do for that? any guidence n e one of u know :)...Dont tell me i cant, i can and i'll cuz i must!

    • As someone, who has some experience in this field, I can assure you, that the correct answer to the question "Want To Write Your Own OS?" is "No, you certainly do not."

      I have to disagree. I wrote a real-time preemptive multitasking kernel for a class on RealTime systems and it was a fantastic experience. It was for a small microcontroller (AVR series) for which few such applications exist, so I wanted something that would be useful if I decided to make it a commercial product. I learned a tremendous amo

      • I have to disagree.

        Great, another person "disagreeing" (quote, unquote) with me... *sigh* Please read this comment [slashdot.org], written by TheAwfulTruth, for intelligent explanation, and you will clearly see the awful truth (pun definitely intended).

        • Oh just fuck off you dull cunt. Your troll was funny for the first few posts. It is now not funny, but tedious.

          • Oh just fuck off you dull cunt. Your troll was funny for the first few posts. It is now not funny, but tedious.

            I just cannot believe it! Is it your hobby to search for old threads, read them and, if you don't find them "funny," insult women as your revenge? Don't you have more important things to do maybe? Don't you think that every woman would find such words extremely offensive? You might consider finally growing up.

            • I just cannot believe it! Is it your hobby to search for old threads, read them and, if you don't find them "funny," insult women as your revenge? Don't you have more important things to do maybe? Don't you think that every woman would find such words extremely offensive? You might consider finally growing up.

              Wow, you're really good at this! Did you study trolling under PhysicsGenius or Bank_of_America_ATM?

              You've gone from funny to stupid, to tedious, and right back to funny again.

              I particularly like th

    • As someone, who has some experience in this field, I can assure you, that the correct answer to the question "Want To Write Your Own OS?" is "No, you certainly do not."

      As someone else who has some experience (including in-depth university classes) in this field, I suggest a better answer would be "Maybe." As with any software, it depends on what you need it to do. I'm completely in agreement that thinking that you can whip up a revolutionary new OS in a month to beat down everything else out there is w

  • heh (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Blob Pet ( 86206 )
    Often in college, my colleagues often joked about building a Porn OS. Many of the features they talked about resided strictly in the realm of the look and feel of course (X-rated buttons and sounds), so it could have been implemented in a window manager theme (making it truly X-windows) on top of an already-existing OS.

    • Re:heh (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Have you looked into Lesbian GNU/Linux? It's an existing distro that promises many of the features that you're looking at. Perhaps you could work with them instead of completely reinventing the wheel.

      THey're at http://www.linuks.mine.nu/porn-get/ [linuks.mine.nu]
    • Instead of building an OS from the ground up, yuo should plan to just make an X-rated theme for an existing GUI OS.

      It could save some time.

  • What would you like to see most in minix? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Traderdot ( 677425 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @08:16AM (#6211272) Homepage
    Here's someone who wrote their own OS:

    Hello everybody out there using minix -

    I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things).

    I've currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and things seem to work. This implies that I'll get something practical within a few months, and I'd like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions are welcome, but I won't promise I'll implement them :-)

    Linus

    PS. Yes - it's free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs. It is NOT protable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will support anything other than AT-hard disks, as that's all I have :-(.

    Message dated 25 Aug 1991

    1. Copy SCO code
    2. ???
    3. Profit!

  • an even better tutorial... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Horny Smurf ( 590916 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @08:36AM (#6211447) Journal
    ... is Tanenbaum's books. "Linux is obsolete" might not have been his finest hour (although some of his points were valid, and linux has since added module support to cut down on the monolithic nature), but minix is a learning OS (in the same way pascal is a learning language), and is much easier to understand (and better documented :) than the linux kernel is.

    • Re:an even better tutorial... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by BoomerSooner ( 308737 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @12:38PM (#6214199) Homepage Journal
      I've got both of these and they are great. Be prepared for some major in-depth subject matter.

      If my personal company ever takes off I'll probably hire a few (5-10) people to work on a linux derivitave that is similar to OS X. Not in look and feel but in the way they took a good existing OS and put a very user-friendly layer on top of it. After getting that working I'll try to get them to integrate a VM like VMWare into the OS so running Windows programs will be like running native programs (obviously we'll have to include a windows license).
      • "obviously we'll have to include a windows license"

        Nah, Windows has become a generic term. I here people say they use windows, but there are so many versions out there, 3.1, 95, 98, ME, 2000, NT, XP, CE and who knows what else that your never sure what they are talking about. Plus I here the X-Box runs windows too. The windows world really needs a standard like Posix to stop it from fragmenting like UNIX(tm) did before it. Maybe that's what .NET is supposed to be for, but it's not even being ported bac
      • Afterwards, perhaps you should focus your abilities towards inventing something in the transportation industry. I was thinking of something suitible for assisting heavy transport, perhaps a device that could allow the user to experience less of a burden when carrying things over a distance. Maybe it could offset the normal difficulties found in dragging our carts on the ground. It would have to be a balancing mechanism that would generate no extra force due to shape as its moved across the ground. Just

  • PseudOS (Score:4, Interesting)

    by EvilTwinSkippy ( 112490 ) <yoda@nOSpAM.etoyoc.com> on Monday June 16, 2003 @01:55PM (#6215059) Homepage Journal
    I've always wanted to finish my PsuedOS, its a phony operating system for simulated robots. The idea was to release the system wrapped with a virtual reality engine, and have folks develop robotic ships, tanks, and fighters to duke it out.

    And when they got bored of fighting, use it to model space stations, automated traffic systems, and domestic droids. The idea would by to write the system as a pile of scripts running pseudocode. The trick would be to get everyone to write using the same language, that was really only useful for real-time processing.

    My intent was also to develop "PPI" (Psuedo Programming Interfaces) that would act like device drivers, and translate a variable to, say, thrust on a rocket. Another PPI would translate position and orientation into an array. Still more would simulate the outputs from visual recoginitions systems, and so on.

    If anyone has visited my website, they would see it presently exists as a paragraph or 2 of "coming soon speak." The project is probably waiting for me to be laid up after being struck by a bus or something.

    Why go to the trouble of developing my own OS? Nothing really exists right now to comprehensively handle massive simulations. Yes you have protocols like HLA, but they are just message passing. Sure there is TCP/IP, but it's so neutral as to be of no help to someone starting out. I could develop a Java API, or a C++ library, but they are far too complex in some respects, and far too limited in others.

    Frankly every operating system we have now assumes that you are structuring everything around files, documents, and static devices. At some point we have to do better.

  • I originally read the subject... (Score:4, Funny)

    by metamatic ( 202216 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @02:04PM (#6215186) Homepage Journal
    ...as "Write Your Own OS/2".

    That particular dead horse is still having a shallow pool of its putrid entrails beaten though.

  • much easier way (Score:4, Funny)

    by zaqattack911 ( 532040 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @04:37PM (#6217025) Journal
    My friend and I are trying to develop a special C function library that will allow people to make their own customizable O/S. By using a single function... called the doOperatingSystem Function. Prototyped as follows:

    void doOperatingSystem(char *name,char *color);

    Pretty snazzy huh?!

  • Why not? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Monday June 16, 2003 @08:02PM (#6218922) Journal
    Emacs did
  • Didn't anybody read the article? It's not about how to write an operating system. It's about how to write a boot block for an x86 PC.
  • I have to say that this is one of the more fun areas of development (having been involved for the last 3 yrs or so). To anyone wanting to get started I would highly recommend the newsgroup alt.os.development - many of the members there also have very informative pages.

    (sorry for posting kinda late, I was busy working on my OS!)

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