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Looking for a co-developer

Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 12:00 pm
by inph
With my post count at 0 as I write this, I'm not sure what kind of response I'll actually get. Since none of you know me, I'll tell you what I've been up to on the OS Dev front.

With my housemate being a software engineer (programming low level code for PLCs/micro controllers), he got me interested in some of the more direct hardware programming. Before then, I did a fair amount of game programming, never really finishing any large games, but that was never my goal. I was actually more interested in creating game libraries and toolkits.

This frame of mind naturally lead me into the realm of Kernel/OS design (the ultimate, and lowest level library/toolkit). I had ventured briefly into the field at college, so was already up to speed on the technical terms. I began by following Brandon's excellent tutorial, but after playing around with the results a bit, I decided it would be silly to continue with that code base, because it's not mine! I then restarted my project, using some of my own ideas. This is where my fixation on the Intel manuals started. If there were something I didn't quite understand, I'd come to these forums; never needing to post, because all of the questions I had, were answered many times already.

I restarted my OS another couple of times after that, due to looking at my code and wondering why I did something. This was over the space of about 2 years on and off. The project never had any goals apart from obtaining knowledge, and by trying so many different things, I accomplished that pretty well.

My Kernel, at the moment, has all the basics: idt, gdt, isr, irq, paging, the beginnings of a libc, heap manager, multi-threading, pit driver, console driver, vfs, initrd/ramfs, some other stuff and a bunch of ideas about how to implement a nice console-based experience.

I'm spending most of my spare time on this, and now I think it's about time I started a project with a few more goals. I'm very open to ideas, but here are some of the things I would certainly prefer about the project:
- Open Source
- At least partial POSIX compliance would be nice. Mainly because I don't fancy writing my own compiler/assembler, so the easier it is to port one, the better (then again, depends on the other goals/ideas).
- Open Source
- An interesting idea. Something new. Something fun.
- Free
- My language of choice is C, though I'm also growing to like Assembly, I'm still thinking in C.

I'm actually looking for someone who is perhaps in the same mindset, or is just restarting their OS project themselves and has an idea or two. Obviously I'm not after someone who's just started OS Dev, or just started programming (what are you doing here? :P), but I'm also not looking for Linus.

If you have any questions, or are interested in teaming up, please do reply :).

Thanks for reading,
Phill

Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 6:01 pm
by inph
Perhaps I should add that I'm also interested in joining an already established project. I am thinking it may have been a little unrealistic to be asking someone else to join me from a blank slate. Also, the list of things I mentioned I'd prefer about the project are very subjective, so if any of your goals don't quite fit with the list, don't be put off by presenting your project regardless.

Naturally, I'll be browsing through the lists of OSs already in development and offering help if their project interests me and requests assistance. If you've one you'd like to bring to my attention, or if your project isn't available on any lists or you've not stated that you require help on those lists, please let me know.

Why do I feel the need to work in a team? Because I'd like to test my teamwork and organisational skills and this is the kind of project that can really benefit from more than one mind.

Cheers,
Phill

Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 6:11 pm
by nekros
Copycat :twisted:

Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 6:38 pm
by inph
nekros wrote:Copycat :twisted:
Hehe, yeah, thought you might say that :)

Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 6:51 pm
by nekros
Well, I'd suggest working on your own OS for now OR Join a working project. :D The reason I didn't ask someone to join mine, is that, after looking around everyone who wants to have someone join their OS has nothing done! Nobody wants to join something like that, nobody does. :twisted:

Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 7:16 pm
by inph
nekros wrote:after looking around everyone who wants to have someone join their OS has nothing done! Nobody wants to join something like that, nobody does. :twisted:
Yeah, precisely what I came to realise. I've found a project that interests me a great deal (since it attempts a few things that I've thought about before), so I'm looking into that. Would still like to hear if anyone is dying to have me join their project ;).

Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 8:07 pm
by 01000101
- Open Source
- At least partial POSIX compliance would be nice. Mainly because I don't fancy writing my own compiler/assembler, so the easier it is to port one, the better (then again, depends on the other goals/ideas).
- Open Source
- An interesting idea. Something new. Something fun.
- Free

lol, I see an odd pattern.
subliminal OpenSourcing? 8)

sounds like you will be well off in getting into a project as there are many projects and alot would (im sure) not reject some help.

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2008 3:35 am
by JamesM
Our project is still in the major first stages, but we'd be happy for you to join us when the skeleton is made properly and we've got a functional kernel.

pedigree.googlecode.com

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2008 8:17 am
by piranha
My feelings are like JamesM's at this point...when it's better sure.

-JL

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2008 11:52 am
by Dex
If your into asm, i have a side project other than my main OS, It maybe a good way to test you team skill, as it as a well defind goal.
That is to boot in less than 3 second and display and be able to use the fasm forum.
So it's a pmode OS, with high-res vesa, mouse, keyboard, gui, browser, tcp/ip stack etc.
If you interested the projects is here:
http://board.flatassembler.net/topic.php?p=70861#70861
And the project started from this thread:
http://board.flatassembler.net/topic.php?t=5733&start=0

Note: It will run fully in ram, not writing to hdd or anything like that.

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2008 4:44 pm
by 01000101
Dex wrote:If your into asm, i have a side project other than my main OS, It maybe a good way to test you team skill, as it as a well defind goal.
That is to boot in less than 3 second and display and be able to use the fasm forum.
So it's a pmode OS, with high-res vesa, mouse, keyboard, gui, browser, tcp/ip stack etc.
If you interested the projects is here:
http://board.flatassembler.net/topic.php?p=70861#70861
And the project started from this thread:
http://board.flatassembler.net/topic.php?t=5733&start=0

Note: It will run fully in ram, not writing to hdd or anything like that.
for some reason, I still fail to find the source code for your project dex. I remember looking when you posted this project in announcements and wanted to check it out.

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2008 5:50 pm
by Dex
Because we have not agreed under what licence to release it under, its for members only for now, but I will send you a link.

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2008 11:38 pm
by jerryleecooper
Why not making your own compiler/assembler?
GCC is not the best one. And we don't care about compilation speed, but about compiled code size and compiled code speed. Im not sure Gcc is the best.
POSIX willl put you back in the seventies.
Why not making a compiler instead?☺