Fiwix 1.0.0 (self-hosting)

[Mikaku]

Hello everybody!,

After a lot of time working on my own kernel, I've reached what we are all seeking here: the creation of a self-hosting operating system.
I'm pleased to announce the release of Fiwix v1.0.0.

Fiwix is an operating system kernel written from scratch, based on the UNIX architecture and fully focused on being POSIX compatible. It is designed and developed mainly as a hobby OS and, since it serves also for educational purposes, the kernel code is kept as simple as possible for the benefit of students and OS enthusiasts. It is small in size with only 35,000 lines of code, runs on the 32-bit x86 hardware platform and is compatible with a good base of existing GNU applications.

It is based on the monolithic kernel design and it is written entirely in C language, leaving only for the Assembler the small needed parts. It follows the System V Application Binary Interface (or ABI) and is also Linux 2.0 System Call ABI mostly compatible. The Fiwix 1.0 version comes with the Newlib v2.2.0 as its system C Library and with the Minix v2 as its primary file system.

Some places you might want to check:

- Official web site: http://www.fiwix.org.
- Download page: http://www.fiwix.org/downloads.html.
- List of features: http://www.fiwix.org/features.html.
- Source code: https://github.com/mikaku/Fiwix (browseable at http://www.fiwix.org/global/HTML).
- more information in the Fiwix web site.

If you have some time, download the Installation CDROM, test it either on a virtual machine or in real hardware, and let me know the results.

Thanks!

[Ycep]

1.0.1 version tried in VirtualBox
Seems quite stable on CD version, but triple faults on the floppy version when... doing something with hard drives it seems I don't know. I used 16mb of RAM and a relatively very small hard drive for the floppy and 64mb of RAM and 2gB HDD for the CD version.
I like it. It's really interesting.
May I ask - what does take 270MB on the CD version? I mean that's really huge... Probably ported software?

Nice website also.

[Mikaku]

1.0.1 version tried in VirtualBox
Seems quite stable on CD version, but triple faults on the floppy version when... doing something with hard drives it seems I don't know. I used 16mb of RAM and a relatively very small hard drive for the floppy and 64mb of RAM and 2gB HDD for the CD version.

It's strange, I've fully tested the version 1.0.0 (not 1.0.1) on several virtual machines and a lot of real (mostly old) hardware successfully. The version 1.0.1, was not fully tested because there were small changes that, supposedly, shouldn't affect the floppy drive. Perhaps the problem is that almost all testing was made on old hardware. That is, on i386, i486, Pentium MMX, Pentium III, old Celerons, AMD K6, etc.

Please, download the 1.0.0 version floppy image from the archive of old versions: https://www.fiwix.org/old-versions, and let me know if you still have the same bad results than with 1.0.1 version.

I like it. It's really interesting.
May I ask - what does take 270MB on the CD version? I mean that's really huge... Probably ported software?

Nice website also.

Glad to know you like it, either the OS and the web site.

Regarding the ISO image, yes, its size is mostly due because it includes all the ported software either in binary format and the source code (with patches).

Thanks for you feedback.

[klange]

Hey Mikaku. Very neat stuff! The extent of your POSIX API support is impressive.

I did have one concern when I was testing out the 1.1 CD, which was that your terminal seems very slow, and I think I know why - reading from video memory, even the VGA text mode memory, is extremely slow. If you buffer your terminal in regular RAM so you're not reading from the video memory when scrolling, it'll be a lot faster.

Other than that, really cool stuff and I look forward to seeing how far you go with this.

[Mikaku]

Hey Mikaku. Very neat stuff! The extent of your POSIX API support is impressive.

Thanks klange.

I did have one concern when I was testing out the 1.1 CD, which was that your terminal seems very slow, and I think I know why - reading from video memory, even the VGA text mode memory, is extremely slow. If you buffer your terminal in regular RAM so you're not reading from the video memory when scrolling, it'll be a lot faster.

Although I haven't detected so 'extreme' slowness, you're idea is indeed interesting and will speed up the scrolling for sure. I'll include it in my TODO list.
Thank you very much for this recommendation.

In fact, the Fiwix kernel has a lot of room for improvement because I was focusing almost exclusively in functionality.

Other than that, really cool stuff and I look forward to seeing how far you go with this.

Thanks again, glad to know you found it interesting.
The work you have put in your ToaruOS is really impressive and amazing.