OSDev.org

Linux, Suse-distro (simply because that's what i'm used to). Xemacs transmogrified to fit my old Turbo-C editor habits, and as little 'desktop controls' as possible on screen (disabling window borders everytime i can do so ) and a penguin watching my steps in bottom-right corner

Heavily tuned makefiles, aliases for my tcsh (mk == make quiet, qcd returns at the root of the project, etc), and Perl scripts that rewrite code when needed (so that a single word can be used instead of 3 lines of #define)

Im a died in the wool FreeBSD user. (heck, I started with 386bsd and linux 0.somethings).

when I go back to uk, i will be moving my laptop 100% over to linux (only because it is more laptop friendly that freebsd right now. fbsd 5.2 and earlier would always reboot my machine running the installer.. didnt like my acpi and stuff ouch!).

but i use a mix of freebsd and xp-pro.

all my osdev work is done on freebsd or in cygwin in XP.
testing is all done via vmware workstation xp.

I use linux (gentoo) & vi, because I am used to it.
Gcc & Gas & ld to compile my code (ELF).
Bochs to emulate it (but a custom build one with debug and PAE).

Yeah, DF I have an annoyance with the FreeBSD BOCH port, fails lots. I'm not going to move just because of that though, I'm passionate about FreeBSD . Anyway, I installed 2000 SP4 today, and hopefully will be able to create myself a nice enviroment.

@Pype: sure the great Zambendorf 's ben of help there, hm?

I'm not sure,but that special book 's been called "The Code of the Lifemaker" by J. P. Hogan. It's two decades old, and I still search for the german copy of it - I've got it somewhere.

as for my OSDEV environment:
SuSE 9.1, Kate (which offers editor,shell and file manager in a tabular view: no need to switch between windows) and the gnu tool chain. nasm and gcc and ld are simply the best.

VMWare Workstation for testing (bochs floppy doesn't work for me - and testing any gui environment in the bochs is awful)

For gods sake I'm used to the ritus of making copies of my working directory to cd. This weekend it happened to me, that the main hard disk of my main *big* computer (aragorn) experienced a very crucial damage and refused to work anymore. *damnit* Gonna buy a new one today.... and my development machine (the olden toshiba laptop I own) works still like a charm

beyond infinity wrote: @Pype: sure the great Zambendorf 's ben of help there, hm?

Never heard of ... Seems like i'll have to crawl the Hitchiker guide to the galaxy again

For gods sake I'm used to the ritus of making copies of my working directory to cd. This weekend it happened to me, that the main hard disk of my main *big* computer (aragorn) experienced a very crucial damage and refused to work anymore. *damnit* Gonna buy a new one today.... and my development machine (the olden toshiba laptop I own) works still like a charm

Which reminds me i have to phone my harddisk reseller to tell him the latest-purchased devices (MAXTOR 80Gb) seems to be one of the 'defect' serie ...

Although not many serious OS developers seem to use this setup, it's worked ok for me once I got it setup properly:

OS:
Windows XP

Tools:
DJGPP (this includes most binutils) upgraded to GCC 3.4
NASM for assembling (although as is included in DJGPP)
PARTCOPY/RAWWRITE/DEBUG for writing boot sector to floppy

Editors:
RadAsm/MasmEd/EditPlus for assembly code
Dev C++/Visual Studio (6 or .Net)/EditPlus for C/C++


I also use slackware linux and kdevelop/kate when I feel in the mood.

The Internet is such a strange place, you'll get all kinds of people, fundamentalist NetBSD programmers who insist that vi is the best editor, the Anti-Java/anything but C/ObjC FreeBSDers (not me btw, and an exaggeration), then you'll get the guys that criticise you for using a GUI such as KDE. Then you get the Windows guys that live for OOP (some I know anyway), and ASM (advanced in their own little sector) It can be extremely confusing listening to the views of other people. I've had a few battles with narrow programmers who fail to see the wider image, but when I'm new to something.. I usually ask questions to my buddies (from all over) and generally I get 16 different replies. But in conclusion, I do agree that I should be trying, and using what I feel happy with.

2slick4sly wrote: The Internet is such a strange place, you'll get all kinds of people, fundamentalist...

I try to keep my anti-fundamentalism from becoming fundamental, because I hate fundamentalism.

Serious, there's wisdom to be found in any of these camps. It only becomes difficult when people start thinking their way is the only possible one.

Windows XP and the GNU toolchain under Cygwin. I quite like Linux and FreeBSD (Have debian running my local network), but it's a pain in the backside getting my wlan card working so I don't bother anymore, maybe I'll check again sometime.

Editing normally gets done under gvim, lyx, or Context depending on whether I'm dealing with a single file, documentation, or a full project's file (Context is quite good at this).

Testing gets done on Bochs/Qemu/My old k6-2/My ancient P120 (Never trust a single source)

Other random tools I use are filedisk (Mount images under windows), xvi32 (Hex editor that can handle BIG files), hexit (Hex editor/disassembler), vc++ (Mainly for quick algorithm testing) and a few personal apps (I think all OS devs end up writing a few, or at least some scripts).

Reference comes from the Intel manuals, HelpPC, asmhelp, RBIL viewer and about a billion PDF files.

A lot of people seem to be using Cygwin. I have very little experience with it, and what I do have was from a few years ago (in the context of work, not OS dev). What I remember about it was that it was a bit too invasive of the normal workings of the NT/2k command-prompt, but I'm not sure I'm remembering correctly. I guess what I'm asking is, is it better than it was 4 years ago, is it relatively safe to install, and is it easy to uninstall? It might be a lot easier for me to have the GNU toolchain running outside of my VM, and just use the VM for testing.

Also, everyone seems to have their own pet editors. I don't want to start a "which editor is best" debate, but I am wondering -- for those who've used VC++.NET (or even VC6, which is pretty close), is there a free editor that comes close to behaving in the same manner? Syn is ok, but it acts too much like Borland, which I'm not used to. Also its "smart indenting" is not so smart.

JEdit is apparently very good for syntax highlighting and editing ofcourse, I recommend it if you're not an Anti-Java person. Choose whatever suits your liking, good luck with whatever you choose, remember to tell us!

Colonel Kernel wrote: ... I guess what I'm asking is, is it better than it was 4 years ago, is it relatively safe to install, and is it easy to uninstall? ...

Cygwin is pretty good now. Installation/Uninstallation is a matter of choosing/deleting directories. AFAIK there's no registry settings any more.

Also, everyone seems to have their own pet editors. I don't want to start a "which editor is best" debate, but I am wondering -- for those who've used VC++.NET (or even VC6, which is pretty close), is there a free editor that comes close to behaving in the same manner?...

Editors are seriously a personal choice issue. I used PFE for years because it is what I was comfortable with. I did try out Dev-C++ a while back, and it felt fairly close to VC6. Dunno if that's what you're looking for though (http://www.bloodshed.net/devcpp.html).

I'm using Watcom in combination with Visual Studio .net 2003 - it's just the best text editor around ;)
All this on XP prof. of course.

Colonel Kernel wrote:Also, everyone seems to have their own pet editors. I don't want to start a "which editor is best" debate, but I am wondering -- for those who've used VC++.NET (or even VC6, which is pretty close), is there a free editor that comes close to behaving in the same manner?

You should give Eclipse a spin. Check out the Eclipse C/C++ FAQ and read this blurb comparing it to VS.NET.