OSDev.org

I have heard of an OS kit made for Unix or Linux. Is there a program that could help me with making an OS?

Yes there is many programs that can help you:
gcc - great program:))
nasm,gas - another greats programs
bochs - :O veery good program
mind - :O you couldn't begin without it:))

I have gcc for windows and nasm, but am still trying to work them out. I have also tryed Microsoft Virtual PC and was good because you can install an OS exactly like you would on a real PC. I also have Bochs 2.2 and am still trying to work that out too. Any good tutorials on the net??

I don't have mind. Where could I find it and get a tutorial for it?

Thanks.

Smith wrote:I don't have mind. Where could I find it and get a tutorial for it?

Thanks.

Sorry about that, he was saying that you need your mind in order to work out the details.

You can also use FASM as an assembler too, but I suspect you're wanting to work from C, so the tools you have should suffice.

There were a few tutorials on Bonofide: http://www.osdever.net/tutorials.php?cat=0&sort=1

These should get you in the fram of mind, so to speak.

There is another forum call Mega-Tokyo: http://www.mega-tokyo.com/forum/

There are a lot of people there willing to help out. There is a Wiki there too: http://mega-tokyo.com/osfaq2/

It will give you a decent flow of information you'll need to plan on along the way.

Additioanlly, I found this page very helpful: http://my.execpc.com/~geezer/

Chris has a ton of stuff, not to mention words of wisdom, all over his pages.

I hope this gets you started down the path of OS development!

Sorry, I thought that it was another silly program

Would you recommend this book for development?

Developing your own 32 bit Operating System by Richard A. Burgess

I've only gotten through the first few pages...it would seem it is a decent knowledge set.

Thanks.
I got the book "Operating Systems: design and implementation" (second edition) which comes with the Minix operating system, but isn't proving very usfull.

Smith wrote:Would you recommend this book for development?

Developing your own 32 bit Operating System by Richard A. Burgess

I have that book. Honestly, it isn't a terrible place to start, and you can get a few basic concepts from it, but the example OS is really terrible. Also, I believe he published the same content under a different title later, something like MMURTL 1.1, so you might want to look for the later edition.

If you use this book, keep the following things in mind:
-The example OS, MMURTL, probably won't run on modern hardware. It does not support more than 64MB memory, and does not support large hard drives or hard drives over 2 GB.
-The code in the book is all written for specialized tools. He wrote his own assembler and modified a compiler for a subset of C for his own purposes, and neither tool is very good. Don't use them.
-A modern OS should probably have more design put into it. MMURTL is quite crude. You should pursue other sources of information when designing your OS. I recommend The Design and Implementation of the 4.4 BSD Operating System, a good book which I own. Written by the authors of on OS that people actually use. It's more about concepts than code, but you will need that.

Thanks, any other recomendations

I'd imagine, by your initial post, that you've heard of the set of libraries called OSKit. I have a few different versions of it, but have never actually used anything from it yet. There's a lot of good stuff there, but working it into your own code could prove to be interesting.

In any event, one search of google reveals the following (first!) link...
http://www.cs.utah.edu/flux/oskit/

--Jeff

Yes, I have heard about os Kit, but couldn't obtain it. I would like somthing that could get me started on the spot (nothing that is a long read). I'll look at the link.