Want to begin making my own computer operating system?

Question

I have been programming for a few years now and I have decided that I would like to begin working on my own computer operating system. Yes, that means bootloader and kernel from scratch, none of that building on Linux business. I am talking EVERYTHING from scratch. Now, I have obviously looked around on Google, and have found out that I may need to learn Assembly (x86 or x64 asm, depending on wether 64-bit or 32-bit are desired) but some people say that you do not need to and you need to learn to directly communicate with the hardware (the Kernel???) and now I have become very confused. What do I need to know, and how do I do it? I have had quite a difficult time finding a good tutorial on Assembly on Google, so any links to tutorials would be very nice. Thank you very much guys.

Answer 1

Hi,



I've just decided to come back to Yahoo! Answers after a long time and I find a question on OS development, how cool is that? First of all, I'm an OS and compiler designer/developer, so I could probably explain things to you. Unfortunately, there's much to say and Yahoo! doesn't give me enough space here to do so. Feel free to add me to your YIM list and I will do my best to answer any questions.



Cheers,

Bogdan

Answer 2

At the heart of every operating system out there, they all have a foundation from the C programming Language. Most people who try to create their own operating system have managed to get so far and that is where they have not been able to get past what ever issue it was that they ran into.It takes some very well planning and figuring out where it all fits together and what should come next.



I'm not so sure about learning machine language or assembly language because ever programming software you use, those file can be converted to assembly language or machine language so you can see what it does at a very low level. I know this isn't very much help. As far as Linux goes, it does offer a lot of programming languages for free that you could use and I don't mean that for what you are talking about, but as an alternative operating system to use for computer programming.

Answer 3

You know? Microsoft has spent over 30 years and close to a billion dollars making a BS OS. The only strength in a MS product is that it can run a basket case computer.



And, that's my point. The hardware paradigm is rapidly shifting away from what your question asks. Further, I can't tell you the trend either because the giants have all assigned their grievances to court dockets. The next five years is going to be telling for the computer industry. Innovation got thrown out the window.

Answer 4

Don't waste your time. There is already an OS better and bigger than anything you could build. Plus, Operating Systems are built by teams of thousands.. By the time you got your kernel together, it would be outdated and you'd have to start over. An OS takes thousands of people several months up to years to build and then you have to have development teams, bug teams, etc.

Answer 5

I am not sure how much people will help here on this topic. Sounds a tad complicated.

There is a project going on for several years a open source windows project.

http://www.reactos.org/en/index.html



They have documented what they did and how they did it, they rewrote everything from scratch. They also have a forum, so you may get much better support and clarification on what todo.