0

I have been wanting to create my own basic operating system for a while, and I read up on it for a bit and ordered some books. My question is if there is some opensource kernel i can use as a base so I don't have to worry about that for now.(I will keep that for later ;) ) I would like to be able to program in c++, so if the kernel is written in that/allows me to program in that language it would be nice.

Thanks

  • If you decide to base your kernel on UEFI, your whole kernel can be written in C++ loaded by UEFI. With BIOS it'd be a whole different situation. So your "opensource kernel" _could be_ UEFI. – zx485 Feb 03 '18 at 17:59
  • if I write a bios os, will it work on uefi? And will a uefi os work on bios? –  Feb 03 '18 at 18:00
  • Yes. And no. You have to target either BIOS or UEFI. The latter is newer and concepted as a successor of BIOS. BIOS is legacy and deprecated. – zx485 Feb 03 '18 at 18:03
  • Then I think i want to target BIOS, as i probably want to test it on some older computers from older then 2010, which probably don't have UEFI. –  Feb 03 '18 at 18:05
  • Yes. Under these circumstances(<=2010) I guess this would be a good choice. – zx485 Feb 03 '18 at 18:07
  • But will i then still be able to run it on my new pc?(Ryzen, probably UEFI). Meaning, is there some compatibility mode? –  Feb 03 '18 at 18:08
  • Yes. All modern PCs still are BIOS compatible. If someone objects to this statement, please tell. – zx485 Feb 03 '18 at 18:10
  • Okay, thanks. BTW. you don't happen to know a OpenSource os kernel, do you? ;) –  Feb 03 '18 at 18:11
  • Have a [look at OSDev](https://wiki.osdev.org/Projects). – zx485 Feb 03 '18 at 18:13
  • thanks will take a look, btw, are there any gpu drivers for non windows, linux and mac systems i could intergrate in my kernel?(to get faster gpu support and such) –  Feb 03 '18 at 18:18
  • @TimLeijten Definitively no. GPUs are very specialized computing domains that require a lot of backgrounds to understand and program and the manufacturer don't release programming manuals to the public. Linux has some open implementation (e.g. noveau, bumblebee) if you want to look into it. – Margaret Bloom Feb 03 '18 at 18:35
  • @MargaretBloom, how hard would it be to port one of those linux drivers? Has anyone ever done such a thing? –  Feb 03 '18 at 18:36
  • 1
    That depends on how well do you understand the Linux kernel and the HW. I don't know if anyone has ever ported a video driver to a custom OS, I suspect no one has. I wrote [something about graphics programming a while ago](https://stackoverflow.com/a/44446248/5801661). FWIW Intel Graphics should be more documented and approachable. – Margaret Bloom Feb 03 '18 at 18:59
  • Thanks, i think i will just start with text based, and work my way up to get more advanced graphics.(Using standard drivers in the bios/pc itself) –  Feb 03 '18 at 19:14

0 Answers0