OSDev.org

Hey everyone!

I am proud to announce the release of SeaOS 0.1.1!
Major Changes are:
A basic ncurses based GUI that does nothing yet.
(It took a while to implement)
(I had to learn basic ncurses stuff)

but thats about it...
Also, I have updated my website and hopefully you can download ISO images and test out the OS.

Screenshots are also available...
Sorry about the ads, but as this is a hobby, I have no real funds for it.
My website is: http://seaos.bravehost.com/

The file wont upload, so just use the Development Version link, it's the same thing.
So, test it out if you like, and give me constructive criticisms.
Tested in VMWare, 256MB Ram, none of this should matter too much...
(Sorry, one thing I haven't updated in the OS is: to open the menu when in Sea Console: press '+', 'w' is up, 's' is down 'd' is expand
and '-' closes the menu.)

-Joe Lewis
this is not my name, but my alias.
i think that my real name is somewhere on this site but i am not sure.

"Your CPU doesnt support long mode" and that's all. Yeah my CPU isn't 64bit. It maybe is a great OS, but I can't run it and I do not like 64bit systems very much Also the ISO image is big as Win98 installation CD, hmm looks interesting - I will try in QEMU x64...

...results:
"BIOS EDD facility v 0.6 (...) 0 devices found"
"EDD information not avaible."
"Loading reiserfs"
"Waiting for device /dev/sr0 to appear......... not found - exiting to /bin/sh"

These are the last lines of your OS. And then it will drop to some shell (could you reduce the screen size please?)
It may sound stupid, but why your OS looks as the same as Linux? I do not have Linux/*nix as my favorite OS's though

inflater

Because some people, including myself.. like the design the Unix-like systems inflater..

Why exactly do you despise them so much? inability to comprehend? or simply dislike the general design?

Anyway, From what I can tell.. It's using the Linux kernel.. but I don't have QEMU compiled for amd64 emulation.

I dislike the general design, treating devices as files, creepy and bloated long text lines appearing on the screen upon system initialization (and in the C source codes too), mysterious stuff and drivers loading, lacking of emulation of proprietary stuff (*stable* NTFS-readwrite driver, emulator software for cheap winmodems, full driver support for e.g. AGP cards, and mostly - onboard soundcards c.) and the general design, when I type HELP i would get a huge list of who knows what, novice user needs a good explanation of whats going on without your head tapped to Mozilla Firefox or Opera and reading huge bunch of manuals (somebody hasn't active internet connection), ... unstable programs written by some no-name developers I've saw (applies for Win32, DOS, etc. too), everything is explained at somewhere else you are searching now, for example:

(newbie user: "How can I run graphics interface? This bash thing is scaring me off. My friend told me i can use KDE. Where is KDE? Has it Linux preinstalled? Oh I would look into disk contents. What? Command "DIR" not found?... HELP... oh I found it, "ls" ... (5 minutes) - so where is KDE? what? i gotta compile it from sources?... i thought it already on the system is. ok, what means compile? i would look into wikipedia... oh i haven't installed my adsl modem driver yet... (5 minutes) okay now i have found the CD, how can i start the installation? autorun doesnt work but this isnt windows... what? running setup.exe doesnt work? oh yeah its windows executable - and where is Linux executable? ehh, Microcom hasnt driver for Linux, too bad, what should i do now? buy a standard external 56K serial modem for Linux in order for net to work?")

I seriously doubt my hardware would work flawlessly on Linux, for example my printer, scanner, ADSL modem, Realtek AC97 onboard soundcard wouldnt work. The drivers are only for Win32.

Sorry for my posts regarding negative comments for Linux, but you see - thats because I hate the architecture... I'm not telling that x86 Win32 is the best, I just am saying what i need for using Linux.

//EDIT: Just downloaded Z80 emulator, and look at this:

yaze-ag-2.12-build01-winbinaries(2).exe

Windows can't delete this file even by shutting EXPLORER.EXE down. You know what I mean for the word "bloat" ? I would just name that file YazeAG212.exe, simply.

If I hurt someone just ignore me.

Of course modifying someone's else kernel (not creating a clone though) is not bad thing to do, forking Linux is hard, I believe it's not cakewalk And it can save a lot of time and free you from severe consequences, e.g. writing FAT32 driver, USB support, etc.

Its not the design, its the attitude of its developers, which has a huge impact on the experience by its users.

Consider that from all laptops that I see at university, some 90% that run a unix run Mac OS.

inflater wrote: I seriously doubt my hardware would work flawlessly on Linux, for example my printer, scanner, ADSL modem, Realtek AC97 onboard soundcard wouldnt work. The drivers are only for Win32.

I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but a lot of that stuff would probably work flawlessly on Linux. (You see, you don't need the manufacturer's drivers. Linux has a lot of FOSS drivers going for it.)

However, there is a lot of stuff that doesn't work as well. The only way to be sure would be to check online.

As for your dislike, Linux is not generally a novice's OS.

First learn about it, then say you don't like it.

Thank you.

Well, running "Knoppix Live CD" (from a CD that was bundled to some PC magazine, dunno the version as i threw the CD into trash, useless stuff) on my machine was fun:

Knoppix Live CD wrote:Can't find KNOPPIX filesystem, sorry.
Dropping you to a (very limited) shell.
Press reset button to quit.

I didn't knew what's going on, and then I discovered this in the magazine (translated): "If message 'Can't find KNOPPIX filesystem' is displaying, you probably do have only one hard disk/partition formatted with NTFS."

Me wrote:... *stable* NTFS-readwrite driver,...

Alboin wrote:...but a lot of that stuff would probably work flawlessly on Linux

Nuff said? And what dare Knoppix to access my hard disk ? It was a "Live CD" version!

Alboin wrote:However, there is a lot of stuff that doesn't work as well. The only way to be sure would be to check online.

Not everybody are having unlimited internet connection 24hrs in a day, 7 days in a week, when problem in your host OS, in this case Linux, would arise And fixing it by your own hand -> it can result like my hard drive speaker test...

Alboin wrote:As for your dislike, Linux is not generally a novice's OS.

I'm not novice at computers, DOS, Win16 and Win32 platform, but sure are at *nix/POSIX. But then why in that PC magazine was 3 years a chapter "Baby steps with Linux" dedicated specially for newbies? I bought that magazine like 3 times in a year because of too few programs on CD (as it wasn't cheap).

Alboin wrote:First learn about it, then say you don't like it.

See above

Alboin wrote:Thank you.

You're welcome

Regards
inflater

inflater wrote:Well, running "Knoppix Live CD" (from a CD that was bundled to some PC magazine, dunno the version as i threw the CD into trash, useless stuff) on my machine was fun:

Knoppix Live CD wrote:Can't find KNOPPIX filesystem, sorry.
Dropping you to a (very limited) shell.
Press reset button to quit.

I didn't knew what's going on, and then I discovered this in the magazine (translated): "If message 'Can't find KNOPPIX filesystem' is displaying, you probably do have only one hard disk/partition formatted with NTFS."

Me wrote:... *stable* NTFS-readwrite driver,...

Alboin wrote:...but a lot of that stuff would probably work flawlessly on Linux

Nuff said? And what dare Knoppix to access my hard disk ? It was a "Live CD" version!

Linux has NTFS support. (IIRC I used it to format my hard drive.) It's probably because you tried it 3 years ago. A lot changes in 3 years when it comes to Linux.

As you said, you're a novice a *nix. I suggest you learn a bit about it, then criticize it. It's as if I were saying that I hated Amiga OS because it's sooooo old and the UI is too shiny. I know next to nothing about it, so how can I possibly make an argument against it?

Alboin wrote:Linux has NTFS support. (IIRC I used it to format my hard drive.)

Yeah, I believe you:
http://www.linux-ntfs.org/
IMO you don't need NTFS driver for low-level disk formatting (but creating of NTFS root dir etc. is other thing).

Alboin wrote:A lot changes in 3 years when it comes to Linux.

Okay, so when I will have time, I will download Knoppix live CD again and run it in MS Virtual PC that has Windows NT 3.51 with NTFS filesystem installed. No FAT there, just like my physical hw. May or may not work, yeah I'm not saying it wont boot. And, WinNT 3.51 has older version of NTFS, so if Linux is so favorited, it should support it fully (no alternative NTFS streams, network things from Win2000/XP NTFS etc.)

Alboin wrote:I suggest you learn a bit about it, then criticize it.

FYI, I day o not write software/OS/drivers every day. I'm into games too. (WINE, etc. are other things.) I'm not critizying, I'm just answering to the answer "Why I dislike Linux". I'm not forcing people to use Win32, and you don't force me to use Linux.

We were a bit offtopic do you know? My first post was just ask why (some) people create system that must be at every circumstances 100% POSIX compliant. Ok, former pascal PortixOS and nowadays it looks like DOS, but it isn't DOS and I do not aim to be DOS compatible in every way. My OS is aimed to be portable and unique (kernel based on DexOS doesn't mean I've created an clone), and to provide different ways of using, not to being tied to some OS, neither if it's popular nor mostly used. And believe it or not, open source isn't the way to go. About 40% of Linux software is open source and it's unstable and buggy. And you see that programmers abandonded it or it's from year 2005 and nothing new. And, the programmers that work hard and they are creating new programs for the whole community - I see them as some kind of slavery. These programmers are ripped off, users capable of writing C/C++ programs will steal their codes, rename it and publish them on their own site. And here we go, they build completely new community, and forgetting the *original* programmer (In some cases.)...

Reality can be cruel...

Alboin wrote:It's as if I were saying that I hated Amiga OS because it's sooooo old and the UI is too shiny.

I like oldies. That is, old software, old games and old operating systems (just were experimenting with windows 1.0). I don't have anything against them, they were popular in the time being

Regards
inflater

Hey Everyone...

Yeah, I forgot about the 64bit kernel.
You see, thats the only way that I can get the kernel to work correctly

And I can decrease the screen size, thats easy. Or you can, just remove the vga=... line in the kernel parameters.
Also

...results:
"BIOS EDD facility v 0.6 (...) 0 devices found"
"EDD information not avaible."
"Loading reiserfs"
"Waiting for device /dev/sr0 to appear......... not found - exiting to /bin/sh"

Just edit the kernel parameters from 'root /dev/sr0' to 'root /dev/hdc' (without quotations) that should work...

and @Brynet-Inc: Yes, you are correct, it is the Linux Kernel.

inflater wrote: We were a bit offtopic do you know? My first post was just ask why (some) people create system that must be at every circumstances 100% POSIX compliant. Ok, former pascal PortixOS and nowadays it looks like DOS, but it isn't DOS and I do not aim to be DOS compatible in every way. My OS is aimed to be portable and unique (kernel based on DexOS doesn't mean I've created an clone), and to provide different ways of using, not to being tied to some OS, neither if it's popular nor mostly used. And believe it or not, open source isn't the way to go. About 40% of Linux software is open source and it's unstable and buggy. And you see that programmers abandonded it or it's from year 2005 and nothing new. And, the programmers that work hard and they are creating new programs for the whole community - I see them as some kind of slavery. These programmers are ripped off, users capable of writing C/C++ programs will steal their codes, rename it and publish them on their own site. And here we go, they build completely new community, and forgetting the *original* programmer (In some cases.)...

Reality can be cruel...

First, I should say that ~90% of Linux software is open source, and it is not as nearly as buggy as some proprietary software.

Finally, no. That is all. I do know know how to respond to such a paragraph .

Check my above post please.

Alboin wrote:First, I should say that ~90% of Linux software is open source,

Sorry, my post should be

About 40% of open source Linux software is unstable and buggy.

Now it looks good? It does change the meaning though.

and it is not as nearly as buggy as some proprietary software.

"Hate to 'burst your bubble'" as you say, but sorry as this is the most stupidiest thing I've ever heard !...
If you cant get along with my meaning about Linux, just ignore it, okay?... If you want just to gear weapons for another war Linux vs. Windows, go on. I've already preclaimed I dont belong in the open source things. NO LINKS, SEARCH IN THE FORUM if you want. - But then don't complain and let mods understand that I have nothing to do with this, if you will get out of ammo Alboin. Capisci ?

Just edit the kernel parameters from 'root /dev/sr0' to 'root /dev/hdc'

Sorry as I'm not experienced with that

Anyways piranha, good work , I was just asking why everybody is doing kernel similar to Linux, that's all.

I'm terribly sorry, piranha, for filling your thread with garbage. I'll try to refrain from entering into such meaningless arguments in the future.

I just find it so hard not to when people attack something that helps so many.

I could tell you how to edit the kernel parameters, if you want.

And as an answer to your question (why is everyone mimicking Linux):
I tried to get my kernel working, and I could have. However I decided to use the Linux kernel because it is so advanced (and is free, which I have to have) . And now, I have basic libraries and eventually will be able to program my OS while it's running. That is very important for me, as it will save much time.

@Alboin: I agree with you (the attacks on helpfulness), and it's okay that this is all in my thread, it's kinda interesting to read...

Also, the screenshots on my website don't seem to be working...so here they are as an attachment