OSDev.org

hey all, I just finished my bootloader. It took me a LONG time for some reason, but i finally finished, it's a 3 stage bootloader.

Now, I'm on to my next peice. I would like to ask you guys what you think is the best course of action and why. I would like to either provide support for dual-core processors or should I jump into x64 long mode and utilize the chips 64-bit technology?

it depends, if its your first OS i would stick to dual core, and then port to a 64 bit version if it ever gets anywhere. You could even stick to single core.

My OS is currently single core, 32 bit. so not very future compatable, but... if it does ever get anywhere (which i doubt, but its fun to speculate) then i plan to fork a 64 bit multi-core version, which caters for everyone.

Since you have apparently spent forever on your boot loader, I don't see why you wouldn't just add 64-bit support now.

I'm missing the 'both' option.
64-bit systems are more likely to have multiple cores/processors than 32-bit counterparts. Long mode is slightly easier than protected mode, so you'd have time to add multiprocessor support.

I didn't put a both option because I didn't want to spend the time to implement both. But it is becoming obvious that I might be able to quickly implement long mode and focus the time on multi-core support.

Combuster wrote:I'm missing the 'both' option.
64-bit systems are more likely to have multiple cores/processors than 32-bit counterparts. Long mode is slightly easier than protected mode, so you'd have time to add multiprocessor support.