Creating an 0S in a Windows environment

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Waldo2k2

Creating an 0S in a Windows environment

Post by Waldo2k2 »

Does anyone know of sites offering information on how to develop an OS in a windows environment? Ex: programs i would need, etc.
Chris Giese

Re:Creating an 0S in a Windows environment

Post by Chris Giese »

Use the GCC compiler. The commercials compilers, even the "free" ones like Borland C 5.5 and Watcom C, really suck for making an OS.

If you have Win9x or WinME, use GCC for DOS (DJGPP):
http://www.delorie.com/djgpp

For assembly language, you can use NASM. The NASM home-page-of-the-month is http://nasm.sourceforge.net/

If you have Win2000, NT, or XP, use GCC for Win32 (CygWin or MinGW32):
http://cygwin.com/
http://www.xraylith.wisc.edu/~khan/soft ... 2/gcc.html

CygWin and MinGW32 won't work with NASM because of a compiler bug, so you must the assembler supplied with the compilers (AS) instead.

Use GRUB to boot your OS:
http://www.gnu.org/directory/grub.html
The kernel produced by DJGPP, CygWin, or MinGW32 must have an "aout kludge" header for GRUB to boot it.

Maybe use Bochs for debugging. I think it's now on Sourceforge. I downloaded the newest version and it didn't work, so...

There's more info and some toy kernels here:
http://www.execpc.com/~geezer/osd
The_Legend

Re:Creating an 0S in a Windows environment

Post by The_Legend »

Does anyone know a good way to mount an ext2fs volume?

If I remember correclty there is a description somewhere on this page which shows how to create ELF-Files with DJGPP.
K.J.

Re:Creating an 0S in a Windows environment

Post by K.J. »

DJGPP works under XP also, though I'm not sure about Win2k.

Maybe use Bochs for debugging. I think it's now on Sourceforge. I downloaded the newest version and it didn't work, so...

The site is now http://bochs.sourceforge.net . My guess is that you downloaded 1.4 which had some goofy bugs in it. 1.4.1 seems to have fixed them, though I still use Bochs 1.3 mostly.

If I remember correclty there is a description somewhere on this page which shows how to create ELF-Files with DJGPP.

I've not done this, but I've talked to ByrdKernel(Mike) who did. He tried 2 different ones out there, one was so buggy it didn't work, and the other made it so the only output option was ELF.

K.J.
anubis

Re:Creating an 0S in a Windows environment

Post by anubis »

K.J. wrote: DJGPP works under XP also, though I'm not sure about Win2k.
It works!!! ;)
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