6 ms·

Operating System Development Series (2008)

134 points by dingo_bat 10y ago

MichailP 10y ago
Anybody aware of nice, complete video lectures for Operating Systems class? There were lectures from Stanford, but only sessions with profesor, no TA session.
- xyz198 10y ago
  Try these ! http://www.cse.iitd.ernet.in/os-lectures http://www.cse.iitd.ernet.in/os-lectures
- unfortunateface 10y ago
  https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/projects/raspberrypi/tutorials/os/ https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/projects/raspberrypi/tutorials/os/
- CommanderNyx 10y ago
  I've been looking at this to review OS fundamentals: https://www.udacity.com/course/introduction-to-operating-systems--ud923 https://www.udacity.com/course/introduction-to-operating-sys... and also this: https://www.udacity.com/course/advanced-operating-systems--ud189 https://www.udacity.com/course/advanced-operating-systems--u... My university also has its own recordings for the introductory OS class: https://recordings.engineering.illinois.edu:8443/ess/portal/section/2aba1524-90ed-4c1c-b43d-a32806ace2f5 https://recordings.engineering.illinois.edu:8443/ess/portal/... with the corresponding course website (for the latest term): http://illinois-cs.github.io/ http://illinois-cs.github.io/ and lab slides http://weichunstevelee.github.io/labs.html http://weichunstevelee.github.io/labs.html Unfortunately, access to the machine problems code isn't available unless you are an enrolled student. But if you are looking just for video recordings, what I linked to is a decent resource. For Operating Systems Design (a more advanced course): https://recordings.engineering.illinois.edu:8443/ess/portal/section/ad9ebe52-1d13-4c62-9c5a-6cf4c5134eb7 https://recordings.engineering.illinois.edu:8443/ess/portal/...
mentos 10y ago
Would it be possible to move more parts of the operating system into hardware to realize an improvement in speed? So for example say Microsoft announced Windows 10 was the perfect operating system and needed no new features/bug fixes would it make sense and would it be possible to realize the OS software in hardware?
- renlo 10y ago
  In chapter 2 of the tutorial, he mentions Commodore DOS as being an OS which resides in ROM (read only memory), which means it's definitely possible. I'm just a laymen but I'd wager that there are some cases where this is still done.
  - yoo1I 10y ago
    But that's still just software stored in a ROM chip. I think what he meant was implementing the actual logic in silicon. Something like a hardwired CPU. I'm not aware of such a machine.
    - PeCaN 10y ago
      Intel i432 had some of that (capabilities, garbage collection, multitasking, etc) but was crippled by a variety of problems—perhaps most of all that it was quite slow and expensive. It was originally intended to run a Smalltalk-like language, the name of which escapes me at the moment, but got retrofitted to run Ada. Unfortunately the Ada compiler for the i432 was awful, in addition to the slow hardware. It was a pretty fascinating idea though.
    - ben_bai 10y ago
      FPGA? ASIC? Sure it's possible, but really only done in highly specialized environments, like bitcoin mining.
- loonattic 10y ago
  Computer hardware used to provide higher level abstractions. An example is the Burroughs B5000. Kind of the opposite of RISC?
latenightcoding 10y ago
Anyone interested in system programming should check xv6 https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/2012/xv6.html https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/2012/xv6.html both the source code and the free ebook
dang 10y ago
Previously discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6268337 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6268337.
leog7 10y ago
I find LFS a better guide http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/ http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/
- dingo_bat 10y ago
  Isn't this different since you're actually writing everything including the bootloader?
- Rusky 10y ago
  LFS is how to compile and configure a bunch of existing software. This is how to write an OS from scratch, totally different.
vertex-four 10y ago
It seems that open-source operating system projects either never quite get past the point of having a kernel that can print stuff, read/write FAT32, and run a couple of userland processes, or they attempt to implement POSIX. There's a couple of attempts to build something different - Haiku, based on the design of BeOS; and Redox, written in Rust and implementing access to the filesystem as URLs - but where's all the actual OS research? Where's the service-oriented OS built on capabilities with a typed object store for a filesystem?
- adrianratnapala 10y ago
  I expect it is because people who want to provide something like your service-oriented OS will do it as an application layer over existing operating systems. This also gives them the flexibility to factor the problem into smaller bits. Cap'n Proto is a service-oriented something-or-other, built on capabilities and even typed objects. But it does not give a flying -ck about storage.
  - kentonv 10y ago
    To be fair, Cap'n Proto is a sub-project of Sandstorm.io which is basically an operating system and cares deeply about storage. But Cap'n Proto can be used independently...
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - vertex-four 10y ago
    The issue is that all these bits and pieces are wonderful for developers, and to a lesser extent sysadmins, but not so wonderful for users, who still get to interact with their systems using much the same paradigm as when the first desktop operating systems came out. The closest I can find would be Sandstorm, which ends up being a frankenstein mashup of Linux and a capability system.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  If you want something different, research SPIN OS with Modula-3, Oberon with Oberon [1]. The work done by Xerox with Interlisp-D, Smalltalk and Mesa/Cedar [2] Or before Multics and UNIX were even born, the work done in Burroughs B5000. [3] There are plenty more examples, one just needs to dive into the history of computing. [0] - http://www-spin.cs.washington.edu/ http://www-spin.cs.washington.edu/ [1] - http://www.projectoberon.com/ http://www.projectoberon.com/ [2] - https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_xerox https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_xerox [3] - http://www.smecc.org/The%20Architecture%20%20of%20the%20Burroughs%20B-5000.htm http://www.smecc.org/The%20Architecture%20%20of%20the%20Burr...
steveklabnik 10y ago
Fun to see this popping up on the day I'm hacking on my own litte OS, intermezzOS. There's lots of great stuff in this series, but it also exemplifies an issue with the hobby OSdev scene: it's almost all for protected mode, with some real mode stuff, and very little long mode stuff. This one does have great real mode stuff, though. Protected mode is a bit simpler, which is nice. Hopefully over the next few years, the long mode stuff will come along. Most of the hobby OSes in Rust are in long mode.
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  I saw it before but didn't know it was yours. Congratulations on joining the club of people doing software all the way to the metal "for real." :)
  - steveklabnik 10y ago
    Thanks. I was in it in college, but back again. :)
- ejanus 10y ago
  Awesome
gravypod 10y ago
I did have some problems when working through the broken thorns tutorials. It seems like some of the code on the site does not work verbatim. Needs a little finagling.

134 points by dingo_bat 10y ago

Anybody aware of nice, complete video lectures for Operating Systems class? There were lectures from Stanford, but only sessions with profesor, no TA session.

xyz198 10y ago
Try these ! http://www.cse.iitd.ernet.in/os-lectures http://www.cse.iitd.ernet.in/os-lectures
unfortunateface 10y ago
https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/projects/raspberrypi/tutorials/os/ https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/projects/raspberrypi/tutorials/os/
CommanderNyx 10y ago
I've been looking at this to review OS fundamentals: https://www.udacity.com/course/introduction-to-operating-systems--ud923 https://www.udacity.com/course/introduction-to-operating-sys... and also this: https://www.udacity.com/course/advanced-operating-systems--ud189 https://www.udacity.com/course/advanced-operating-systems--u... My university also has its own recordings for the introductory OS class: https://recordings.engineering.illinois.edu:8443/ess/portal/section/2aba1524-90ed-4c1c-b43d-a32806ace2f5 https://recordings.engineering.illinois.edu:8443/ess/portal/... with the corresponding course website (for the latest term): http://illinois-cs.github.io/ http://illinois-cs.github.io/ and lab slides http://weichunstevelee.github.io/labs.html http://weichunstevelee.github.io/labs.html Unfortunately, access to the machine problems code isn't available unless you are an enrolled student. But if you are looking just for video recordings, what I linked to is a decent resource. For Operating Systems Design (a more advanced course): https://recordings.engineering.illinois.edu:8443/ess/portal/section/ad9ebe52-1d13-4c62-9c5a-6cf4c5134eb7 https://recordings.engineering.illinois.edu:8443/ess/portal/...

mentos 10y ago

Would it be possible to move more parts of the operating system into hardware to realize an improvement in speed? So for example say Microsoft announced Windows 10 was the perfect operating system and needed no new features/bug fixes would it make sense and would it be possible to realize the OS software in hardware?

renlo 10y ago
In chapter 2 of the tutorial, he mentions Commodore DOS as being an OS which resides in ROM (read only memory), which means it's definitely possible. I'm just a laymen but I'd wager that there are some cases where this is still done.
- yoo1I 10y ago
  But that's still just software stored in a ROM chip. I think what he meant was implementing the actual logic in silicon. Something like a hardwired CPU. I'm not aware of such a machine.
  - PeCaN 10y ago
    Intel i432 had some of that (capabilities, garbage collection, multitasking, etc) but was crippled by a variety of problems—perhaps most of all that it was quite slow and expensive. It was originally intended to run a Smalltalk-like language, the name of which escapes me at the moment, but got retrofitted to run Ada. Unfortunately the Ada compiler for the i432 was awful, in addition to the slow hardware. It was a pretty fascinating idea though.
  - ben_bai 10y ago
    FPGA? ASIC? Sure it's possible, but really only done in highly specialized environments, like bitcoin mining.
loonattic 10y ago
Computer hardware used to provide higher level abstractions. An example is the Burroughs B5000. Kind of the opposite of RISC?

latenightcoding 10y ago

Anyone interested in system programming should check xv6 https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/2012/xv6.html https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/2012/xv6.html both the source code and the free ebook

dang 10y ago

Previously discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6268337 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6268337.

leog7 10y ago

I find LFS a better guide http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/ http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/

dingo_bat 10y ago
Isn't this different since you're actually writing everything including the bootloader?
Rusky 10y ago
LFS is how to compile and configure a bunch of existing software. This is how to write an OS from scratch, totally different.

vertex-four 10y ago

It seems that open-source operating system projects either never quite get past the point of having a kernel that can print stuff, read/write FAT32, and run a couple of userland processes, or they attempt to implement POSIX. There's a couple of attempts to build something different - Haiku, based on the design of BeOS; and Redox, written in Rust and implementing access to the filesystem as URLs - but where's all the actual OS research? Where's the service-oriented OS built on capabilities with a typed object store for a filesystem?

adrianratnapala 10y ago
I expect it is because people who want to provide something like your service-oriented OS will do it as an application layer over existing operating systems. This also gives them the flexibility to factor the problem into smaller bits. Cap'n Proto is a service-oriented something-or-other, built on capabilities and even typed objects. But it does not give a flying -ck about storage.
- kentonv 10y ago
  To be fair, Cap'n Proto is a sub-project of Sandstorm.io which is basically an operating system and cares deeply about storage. But Cap'n Proto can be used independently...
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- vertex-four 10y ago
  The issue is that all these bits and pieces are wonderful for developers, and to a lesser extent sysadmins, but not so wonderful for users, who still get to interact with their systems using much the same paradigm as when the first desktop operating systems came out. The closest I can find would be Sandstorm, which ends up being a frankenstein mashup of Linux and a capability system.
pjmlp 10y ago
If you want something different, research SPIN OS with Modula-3, Oberon with Oberon [1]. The work done by Xerox with Interlisp-D, Smalltalk and Mesa/Cedar [2] Or before Multics and UNIX were even born, the work done in Burroughs B5000. [3] There are plenty more examples, one just needs to dive into the history of computing. [0] - http://www-spin.cs.washington.edu/ http://www-spin.cs.washington.edu/ [1] - http://www.projectoberon.com/ http://www.projectoberon.com/ [2] - https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_xerox https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_xerox [3] - http://www.smecc.org/The%20Architecture%20%20of%20the%20Burroughs%20B-5000.htm http://www.smecc.org/The%20Architecture%20%20of%20the%20Burr...

steveklabnik 10y ago

Fun to see this popping up on the day I'm hacking on my own litte OS, intermezzOS. There's lots of great stuff in this series, but it also exemplifies an issue with the hobby OSdev scene: it's almost all for protected mode, with some real mode stuff, and very little long mode stuff. This one does have great real mode stuff, though. Protected mode is a bit simpler, which is nice. Hopefully over the next few years, the long mode stuff will come along. Most of the hobby OSes in Rust are in long mode.

nickpsecurity 10y ago
I saw it before but didn't know it was yours. Congratulations on joining the club of people doing software all the way to the metal "for real." :)
- steveklabnik 10y ago
  Thanks. I was in it in college, but back again. :)
ejanus 10y ago
Awesome

gravypod 10y ago

I did have some problems when working through the broken thorns tutorials. It seems like some of the code on the site does not work verbatim. Needs a little finagling.