How to create bootable GUI programs?

Question

*"for Retro computing purposes only"*

Some programs are directly bootable and have a nice GUI

e.g. Acronis OS Selector and Disk Director (screenshot)

How can they run wihtout underlying OS? Can this be acheived by using a minimal Linux distribution?

goal: the program should run such that it appears independent of the os (e.g you dont have to launch it from the os cmd or desktop)

also the OS should not have increase the size of the program a bit too much

Also I wonder if Qt GUI's can run like this...

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 18 '11 at 12:44

2

I suspect that Acronis OS Selector and Disk Director uses their own version of Windows 7.

Yes, you can produce a program that has it's own operating system. You could use a bootable Linux distribution.

Knoppix, to pick one example, is a bootable Linux distribution.

answered Mar 18 '11 at 12:44

Gilbert Le Blanc

1

I think the question is more "how can I achieve the same behaviour as graphical installer used by linux distros" than "can I use a livecd to run a graphical program" – Aif Mar 18 '11 at 12:47
@Aif: I realize you can't be verbose in a comment, but I don't understand the distinction between your two questions. – Gilbert Le Blanc Mar 18 '11 at 12:51
the latter means launching a program from a complete OS rather than some independent-like behaviour – yolo Mar 18 '11 at 13:29
2

@umar: Ok. I guess. The OS included with your program has to access the disks, graphics cards, and possibly the network (Internet). It doesn't sound like too much less than a Linux kernel to me. – Gilbert Le Blanc Mar 18 '11 at 14:01
yes seriously. but google "DOS GUI" and you come up with some interesting ui's – yolo Mar 18 '11 at 14:10
@Umar: Ok. We started with an embedded Windows 7, and now we're talking about DOS emulators. Perhaps you should ask your real question if you want a real answer. – Gilbert Le Blanc Mar 18 '11 at 14:13
finally got it - Acronis uses Fox toolkit and linux software http://www.acronis.com/support/licensing/index.html – yolo Mar 18 '11 at 14:40

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:19

2

The story behind a comprehensive GUI + bootable program is somewhat like this:

edited May 23 '17 at 12:19

Community

answered Mar 22 '11 at 11:37

yolo

2 Answers2