Writing an OS - Page 5

hillbillybob · 03-13-2006, 12:20 PM

There are many competitions to windows, other than OS x

They're all Linux based. Linux is a very viable OS with the Scalability and security to reach to the enterprise community. I know for a fact that walmart uses proprietary UNIX.

Problem 1 - Hardware support
MS has paid hardware developers to be able to support that hardware. That would have to be my biggest complaint with Linux/UNIX is the hardware support. These Hardware developers just will not work with independant software developers. Sure, some brilliant work has come as a result of Open Source OS - firefox for example but developement would go a lot faster with less bugs if the hardware developers would just release their white papers

Problem 2 - MS has brainwashed the masses
It really surprises me how many people haven't heard of UNIX/Linux. Even though UNIX is by far the oldest OS being around for near 50 years.

Problem 3 - Tech support
There aren't many "UNIX/Linux experts" out there, because of the narrow distribution of the various flavors, and also because of the different flavors. There are a lot more "windows" experts because that's were the money is. again, this reaches back to the uneducated masses.

I agree, you wanna develop your own OS.....start with a Linux kernel, develop to your needs. Share it with the world. This is defenatly a revolution that needs to take place. Software based on need, not profits.

Thomas Edison - necessity is the mother of invention

Unfortunatly it all boils down to money. cause bull 5|-| 1 7 walks all the time

tommyboy123x · 03-14-2006, 12:29 AM

i definatelly agree with you hillbillybob and the others who have said messing with linux and stuff... but i actually ended up landing at this forum in search of how to make my own operating system. The thing with linux is that it isn't as versatle (spelling..) as windows.

Joke, laugh, flame me, w/e but i truely am going to create another operating system with my own unique bootloader, kernel, shell, GUI, etc etc. Rightfully so if i ever do make it, it will be 100% open source

. Right now its me and about 2 other people who are starting to make it... mainly just planning right now, not too much programming yet (hard to tell where to start

). My reasoning to keep me working on the OS is that microsoft really adds a TON of lines of script that is unused in so many occasions. It definatelly makes the OS much more complete with the thousands of extra lines, but for example, when will you ever use the little "?" button on some windows..? It is nice to have, but not really needed, especially if YOU made the OS. A strange comparison here, but you all remember reading "Of mice and men" by john steinback. When george and lennie (?) have the dream of owning their own farm or ranch, they didn't really care if it was possible or not, but they had a dream

.

Anyways...

i guess i wanted to just say my oppinion on the topic, but also i am a huge believer in something you do yourself is better than something someone else makes. Using other peoples kernels and stuff to me is almost like "cheating" because i am so..... "ambitious" i guess is the word

tommyboy123x · 03-15-2006, 08:20 PM

at the beginning people were saying how many millions of lines windows is.....

Quote:

Windows 3.1 (released in 1992) had three million lines of code, but less than 10 years later, Windows XP (released in 2001) had over 45 million lines of code. Windows Server 2003 has over 50 million lines of code.

TheHeadFL · 03-15-2006, 08:32 PM

Having more or less code has nothing to do with how fast an Operating System will run.

The number of lines of code really has more to do with how hard it is to manage.

tommyboy123x · 03-15-2006, 09:06 PM

i would agree... but also, i can only imagine that more code will make it slower... a nice simple script would be much faster, am i wrong?

TheHeadFL · 03-15-2006, 11:13 PM

If you want to talk about the number of actual instructions involved in an operation at the assembly code level, it still isn't possible to say for certain if more code = slower execution.

Not all operations are created equal.

If I want to multiply a number in register A by 16, I could do:

(assuming an accumulator type CPU is used for illustrative purposes... MIPS assembly)

LDA A
MULI A, 16
STA A

The preceding code is equivalent to (a = a * 16).

Or perhaps this code:

LDA A
SHLI A, 2
SHLI A, 2
SHLI A, 2
SHLI A, 2
STA A

(equivalent to (a = a << 2; a = a << 2; a = a << 2; a = a << 2

)

These two sections of code produce the same result. In this case, however, the shift left operations are much faster than multiplication, and the longer code runs much faster.

tommyboy123x · 03-16-2006, 12:08 AM

wow... i really didn't know that

thanks for the enlitenment

raross · 03-19-2006, 10:36 AM

C is considered language of choice for writing operating systems, because of the power it gives you to manipulate things at the very low level.

sumone · 03-27-2006, 11:56 AM

I wrote my own OS in x86 p-mode assembly...back in '01 when I was a Sophomore in High School. Man I used to be a geek; Now I don't even remember half the stuff I used to know.

hillbillybob · 04-11-2006, 05:42 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by tommyboy123x
i would agree... but also, i can only imagine that more code will make it slower... a nice simple script would be much faster, am i wrong?

not always, take the concept of OOP, it doesn't matter how many lines, but if you call that object. Im gonn agree with TheHeadFL on this.

hmmm...what all is involved in assembly programming? Is is a compilied language like c/c++? any good tutorials?

tommyboby123x, if you would like some help, I would love to be in on that project. I think it would be hella interesting. I agree. Dream big, because if you overshoot, then you know you can make it.

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