Advantages of OS Development - What inspires you?

[prajwal]

Hi Friends,

So far I had kept saying that the OS I am developing (MOS) is very trivial. Even now it is... but I have "1 bit" confidence now to say it is fairly stable (not to be read as efficient though) when it comes to multitasking, ELF application and dll managment, memory management etc...

I am able to port ld, gas, gcc successfully and able to compile and run c programs on my OS .

Now I was just trying to implement USB. Going over the (really good and helpful) USB tutorial in this wiki and other documents. I felt its really really tough one to implement (. But I will go on with your help anyways.

Next is to improve HDD drivers to support as much ATA intel IDE devices as possible and mainly SATA (which is what all new comps have and my OS doesn't support that )

Next is to implement Network driver, VGA etc.... and the list goes on............ ......

But as I move on, the question "WHY SHOULD I DO ALL THIS" is getting bigger and stronger within me. with little time that is left out of my work and family, I spend it on this os dev !!

Sure, you experts would have gone thru these phases already. So here's my question to you guys hoping to get answers which inspire me to continue with this work which I am passionate about but tired of !

Apart from reasons such as Passion and dream etc.... etc.... What are the advantages of developing an OS ?
Does it help me to get a good job , earning great Money... will it help me to improve my financial state and lead a peaceful and respectful life in my retired life.

I am still passionate about developing my os but still want to hear from experts over this forum to know if there are any advantages/opportunities which I can explore through this os dev work .

Basically I am looking for an inspiration !

Thanks,
- MosMan

[VolTeK]

inspire, well its really upon who u are, r u confident with what u want, and will u do anything (other then cheat) to get it, even if it takes u 2 months? lol (me). i cant inspire u, but i can tell u, if u r dedicated, osdevelopment, wil be a fun and learning experience for you.

[earlz]

The only reasons I did it is because it was freaking fun. Your your own man when it comes to programming your OS. You completely design how every single thing will work and if it doesn't work there is no one but yourself to blame..

If you don't enjoy low level programming and designing everything from scratch. Don't make your own OS.. Else, it'll just be yet another Bare-Bones OS with a custom message displayed

Some good things you can learn in the process of making an OS though is:

* Getting a much lower level understanding of how machine code and your CPU work. (The usefulness of this is debatable however)
* The ability to think outside the box for programming (kinda like how they say Lisp is a good language to learn even if you never use it)
* Learning your language at a much closer level. This can help you to be "forced" to learn certain elements of the language you previously did not know(but could work around in userland). It also helps you to get an understanding of how algorithms turn into assembly code and how to better optimize them in a processor-independent(usually) way
* Impressing a few of your programmer friends that've never done anything like that. My boss was pretty impressed when I told him I made a simple OS that made it to ring 3 and had a memory manager.
* General experience at things you wouldn't normally do. I for one can say I learned a lot from writing my own page manager. Was it fun? No.(probably the worst part of it all) Do I still use some concepts I finally "figured out" even into C# work? Yes

[neon]

Perhaps working on two different large scale projects and going back and fourth between them might help? Its what I do and both have great progress.

You dont need to do all of that if you dont want to - its entirely up to you how you want to design and construct your system. That is the beauty of software design.

Advantages of developing an OS would include the knowledge and experience of operating systems gained. Operating System and Executive Software can be as complete as you like - writing a few lines of code a day for years can go a long way. It is entirely possible, with enough dedication, to produce something very good with dedication and passion of just doing it. Its like that one guy who built a home brew PC using TTL (I forget what its called atm). Most of us do it for fun and/or commercialism. I personally do it for both.

Not to mention, I can claim my OS is virus free Oh, also the more programming experience the better you can get at programming in general that can be passed onto applications development. The experience can also somewhat carry to embedded platforms and new computer systems (like consoles system software.) Also, its great for getting better and problem solving skills that can carry in the more complex fields of programming.

One piece of motivation that I have is to one day be able to see myself booting up my own OS and using it to browse the forums

[prajwal]

One piece of motivation that I have is to one day be able to see myself booting up my own OS and using it to browse the forums

I like it

[Combuster]

To boldly go where only few men have gone before

[TSeeker]

To boldly go where only few men have gone before

I can only cheer to that (and second it)

[Dex]

To boldly go where only few men have gone before

But you can say the same about girls toilets

My addvice is stop before you put your spare time into something that is point less, as once you have 5 years in a project, its hard to stop.
It may help you get a job in programming ( as i usually get a job offer about once a month), you may also get sponsorship to work on cool devices.
Eg: most of team DexOS has been given one of these ARM Dev boards to port DexOS too.


But the most important thing is you need to know what the OS is going to be used for, when i started my OS i wanted a Xbox type OS for the x86.
Less work than making a full desktop, but still alot of work.

[nekros]

You have some serious success there dex .

[Dex]

You have some serious success there dex .

Thanks, nekros.

[gravaera]

True. I'll leave a congratulatory post here in your favour as well, Dex.

-gravaera

[phredreeck]

I have a lot of interest for DexOS. I'm trying to port my assembler on it.

[df]

It's hard to offer inspiration. You either like doing it or you do not. There is a serious tipping point when you go form 'cool its booting' to 'holy crap this is serious work' when you realise modern hardware is a PITA with its complex standards, busses, etc.

I like the way dexos went, I think embedding is more interesting than a general purpose x86 os etc. Those SOC ppc + arm boards are cool stuff, and usually much easier to get docs for from freescale etc.

[Solar]

If you don't know why you are doing this, you should stop doing it.

There are many things that could drive a person to start (or continue) OSDev. Working towards your own goals, quality standards and timetables could be one thing. Doing something completely different than you do in your job. Improving your skills and experiences as a programmer. The tremendous feeling of achievement when you got another subsystem to work. The applaud from your peers for a job well done. All this could be reasons to carry on.

Some even dream of writing the next great OS of the future. I dreamed that dream once, too. But while it could augment your motivation, I think that it isn't enough to be the only motivation, because the chances of it ever being even marginally achieved are so very slim.

When all those motivations melt away, when job and family become more important, remember that you started this out of those motivations that might no longer be there. The moment it becomes a burden instead of the creative outlet it was in the beginning, it's no longer worth doing it IMHO.