Build your own OS?

[kryton9]

Came across this while researching about making an Operating System(OS).
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/index.html

This looks quite interesting too OS written in C#:
http://cosmos.codeplex.com/

[Charles Pegge]

Creating a cross-platform language, to a large degree depends on creating a virtual operating system. - A standardised layer of functions to hook into the platform-specific operating system and its supporting libraries.

The Windows libraries we have to deal with are far too complex at present and a huge barrier to creating useful applications, especially for non-professionals.

So I think reinventing the virtual home-computer with an embryonic OS would be a very useful exercise.

Charles

[danbaron]

SkyOS:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyOS

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The Windows libraries must be too complicated - how many GUI builders are there?

[largo_winch]

https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Screenshots

I only knows "virtualbox" by oracle they're running at some special areas of science development of our university here (linux, mac os, win7 os). the disadvantage is the os is very slow in my eyes and not very high reliable.

"os2/warp" I know from my father he has started working in early 90er (nineties). I read a lot of this os and loved it but unlikely the big ms company with upcoming win 3.1 has caught this intelligent software company (digital research) and I am thinking the chance was there to think about a OS for different operating systems already end of eighties and beginning of nineties.

The Windows libraries we have to deal with are far too complex at present and a huge barrier to creating useful applications, especially for non-professionals.

So I think reinventing the virtual home-computer with an embryonic OS would be a very useful exercise.

charles, what do you think if there's a chance to invent such an "embroyonic os"? how you would build this virtual machine if everything in this world depends more or less on win api and windows os?

bye, largo

[Charles Pegge]

On the home computers of the early 1980's, the operating system was built into the Basic programming language. Programs could be loaded and saved on cassette tape, run or line-edited. text, pixel, sprite, and simple vector graphics were available, and there was serial input/output and parallel output for printers. The keyboard was built-in. Joystick ports and mice came later.

There we have the essentials of an operating system

Translate this into the environment of 2012, and we have something fairly similar, only with most i/o going through the USB port, 3d graphics, digital sound, and single screens replaced by multiple windows.

I reckon About 1% of MS windows OS calls do 99% of the work for most programs, so the operating system could be based on this small subset of the host system.

Charles

[kryton9]

I started looking into OS development just to learn how things worked. I also found some very short simple Hello World Operating systems. Basically it boots and outputs Hello World to the screen, which I found useful just to see the minimum you needed to boot up and do something. When you think of what a modern OS needs, it is too daunting to make one. I think playing with Linux From Scratch is a good start to learn how to make your Linux OS.

I then found this. This is really cool. You basically design your OS on the web and it makes it for you. This video tutorial shows how fun and easy they made it.