New SOLAR OS version 2004-03-03 available

[bogdanontanu]

Hi all.

There is a new SOLAR OS version at www.oby.ro
http://www.oby.ro/os_main.html
-> above server might not be up 24/7,

a more reliable host is still available at:
http://www.hostileencounter.com/os_main.html

What is new:
-------------------------
Multiple desktops
Tasklist/bar with minimize/restore
HDD Fat32 Explorer is improved
Keyboard driver improved
API functions have evolved a lot.

Works pretty well under vmware or booted from a floppy on real hardware and will not attempt to write on your HDD (not yet)

Source code is included.
Also the first version released under GPL license.

This is work in progress and any comments, observations etc are welcome... both positive and negative

Best regards
Bogdan

[bubach]

keep it up, looks nice!

[bogdanontanu]

Thank you...

Some comments are wellcome also .. like:
-what do you think i should implement next?
-found any bugs or annoying miss/features?
-does it work on your machine? how fast/slow?

Once again
Thank you

[Slasher]

I tries your OS on my machines -
Beta:
Pentium 200 Mhz MMX
ATI Mach64 1Mb (Vesa 2.0)
1Gb Hard Disk
52x CD-ROM drive
32Mb Ram
1.44 floppy drive
PS/2 Keyboard
PS/2 Mouse
Nvidia nForce MCP Network Adapter
Intel(R) 536EP V.92 Modem
Sound Blaster compatible sound card (will get make later)

but the mouse was just jumping all over the place when I move the mouse. It was moving around the edges and straight through the sceen. I could not point at anything. (It woked in Bochs though).

It worked on
Alpha:
Amd Athlon XP 2.6+ Ghz
Nvidia Riva TNT 2 model 64 32MB (Vesa 3.0)
Maxtor 80Gb Hard Disk
52x24x52x CD-RW drive
16x DVD drive
256 Mb Ram
1.44 Floppy drive
PS/2 Keyboard
PS/2 Mouse
Creative SB Live! series sound card
RealTek AC'97 Audio (disabled at the moment)

Hope this helps

[Tim]

Hey, good work. I hope to try this soon.

From your Concepts page:

Why check an application for errors at every run when it is supposed to be "error free" ?

Because things can go wrong out of the control of the application. Say there's a power cut meaning that the file system doesn't get unmounted cleanly. At the next boot, the file system's structures will be inconsistent. If the file system driver doesn't contain error checking, it will never boot.

Why trash cache at evry task switch at arbitrary moments?

Why indeed? This doesn't have to happen.

Why switch from Ring3 to Ring0 at every OS System Call?

For protection. Ordinary apps should be restricted in what they can do directly, and this is enforced in hardware by running them in ring 3. If they need to do something privileged, they have to do it through ring 0 code.

[bogdanontanu]

To Code Slasher
----------------------
Thank you for testing... on real machines.

I hoped to have had fixed that damn mouse bug that show on your 200Mhz machine... ...obviousely i did not ...

Well, you could press Alt+3 to restart the PS/2 mouse driver -- as this is usually fixing it... i must be doing something "slightly" wrong there in the mouse initialization routine... since it is only showing on slower machines

Yes your testing did helped me.

Thanks again for testing.

To Tim Robinson
----------------------
Hehe so my "concepts" page did gotcha

Well i know your arguments, i did NOT posted that stuff on my site from ignorance.

I just happen to think othervise (when compared to you that is) and if this is of no interest to this forum i am prepared to take this debate on indeological terms via email

Email me if interested in this debate:[email protected]
Maybe we can both understand our different oppinions better

Just a fast argumentation from my side:
------------------------------------------------
1)I do NOT see why a filesystem has to be unmounted... are you biased via unix style here? For example my OS beeing realtime and critical oriented i could just write thru all filesystem writes and use cache only when reading, or cache writes only for a very short period of time (for speedup) ..a time that any decent UPS system will keep power up (like a few secconds) -- of course offering an option to the user to choose this.

Also you did not understand that concept very well... or i did not expressed it right:
I did not mean "no runtime error checking" for results or something.. i still think that an algorithm/application should work well for all and every data thrown at it ,

What i mean was the useless checks for ring3 protection
What i am proposing is better checks at design time and lesser checks at run time...
(see point 3 below)

2) Keeping chache untrashed (and TLB/pagind) with prremptive multitasking is a hard job IMHO, also programming when you are interupted whenever OS feels like is not very efficient not very error prone IMHO

While most people praise preemptive multitaking for programmers ease of use -- i do not.
A matter of oppinion of course, -- as i well know the many advantages of preemptive multitasking ...
But my choice of oppinion is cooperative multitasking -- for personal reasons to long to express here....

3) I do NOT see why "ordinary" applications have to be "protectd" in what they can do.. i really see a use for this "sandbox" only when testing code... at developemnt time ... but at runtime this wastes preciouse resources with no real use... again a matter of oppinion that i am willing to sustain

Applications from "unprotected era" have/had far less bugs and crashes than today "protected" applications and environments

I do not intend to return to "old" times, insted i just want to design an OS that will be an example and sustain my concepts.

For making fair testing I have stated that I also intend to implement "standard" preemptive multitasking + paging + ring0/3 protection...

This way things could be fairly tested with same OS on both grounds

[Pype.Clicker]

i probably should have looked for it more than 2 min's, but i didn't found a disk image for your system ... and as i don't have JLOC installed ...

[anonymous]

i probably should have looked for it more than 2 min's, but i didn't found a disk image for your system ... and as i don't have JLOC installed ...

Download the source (with binary) from: http://www.hostileencounter.com/os/file ... _03_02.zip

Then, check the how to install page:

Installing SOLAR OS to a blank Floppy Disk
For Windows users
1. get a blank formated 1.44M floppy disk
2. Use rawrite (included) to write os8.bin on floppy
type rawrite"
type os8.bin"
type a
place floppy in drive "A:" and press ENTER
For UNIX/LINUX users:
1. get a blank formated 1.44M floppy disk into A: drive
2. Use the DD program to write os8.bin on floppy
type dd if=os8.bin of=/dev/fd0
To Start SOLAR OS boot your PC using this freshly created floppy disk

[Aleksander Helgake]

Works perfectly on my IBM ThinkPad A2Ie laptop.

[Pype.Clicker]

look to be mouse problems with the "internal mouse stick" of Toshiba Laptop ... the system obviously work, but the mouse pointer is never on screen and looks like clicking without request when i try to move it ... i'll get in deeper tests with a 'real' PS/2 mouse ...

[bogdanontanu]

Thanks all for testing

Yes it looks like the old PS2 mouse bug, please try the Alt+3 for mouse re-setup , sometimes it helps. Besides i do not know if the laptop "stick" is fully compatible with the standard PS2 mouse.

Also the sources contain both <b>Jloc</b> and <b>rawrite</b> in the "bin_tools" folder

Also i have released a new version

[Pype.Clicker]

actually, there's not just "one" such standard, iirc. If i refer to Xfree mouse setup, imps2 does not the same way as 'legacy' ps2 mouse and there are even more small deviations ...

btw, if you have some place where key combo are defined, i would be pleased to know

[bogdanontanu]

Hi,
What exactly do you mean by "Key combo"

If i do not have one i will make some

[Pype.Clicker]

the 'alt+3' thing did not help ... it actually moved the cursor on the center of the screen but did not improved the mouse decoding

'combo' is a shortcut for 'combination', which was used for multi-button movements in games such as Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter 2 ... i should have picked up another word ;D

[DennisCGc]

It worked for me (in Bochs ;D ).
Pretty good, btw.
But it ran very slow in Bocks (may be because of my computer ::) )
But anyway, it looks well.
But unfortunately, it requires VESA 2.0, so I can't run it on my P1
(No, my P1 is not the "internet" computer )