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Long time, no lurk.  ? about GDT and IDT descript.

Posted: Wed Mar 27, 2002 2:36 pm
by Bart Grantham
Ok.  Long time, no visit.  I've been preoccupied and this OS thing is very time consuming.  So, I'm still stuck on enabling interrupts and I feel like I am stabbing in the dark.  I am coding in C (wherever possible) and using GRUB to boot and I have a very specific question:

If I set up an IDT (I think I fully grok that) and do all the proper INT remapping, IDTR initialization and IF setting, do I have to set up a GDT?  My IDT descriptors have to have a selector into the GDT/LDT that provides operating context, but can I get away with not having this?

Not that I mind setting up the GDT and whatnot, but enabling ints seems like SUCH a complicated procedure and there are apparently no places to stop and do a sanity check, therefore I don't want to try and bore through the GDT and IDT setup together blindly and make it even more complex than it already is.

Re: Long time, no lurk.  ? about GDT and IDT descr

Posted: Wed Mar 27, 2002 6:53 pm
by Kernel Panic
I guess you have to set up GDT anyways, since you're working in protected mode :) . Or did you mean callgates or something like that?