4 ms·

Roll your own Unix

159 points by fogus 15y ago

stephen_g 15y ago
I'm not sure if he updated it on the site linked above (it's not loading for me), but as I remember James was working on a better code base for his tutorials. The theory on this website was good but the code had problems. The updated code was hosted at Google code - http://code.google.com/p/jamesm-tutorials/source/browse/ http://code.google.com/p/jamesm-tutorials/source/browse/
loeg 15y ago
Server seems severely overloaded -- here's the latest archive.org mirror: http://web.archive.org/web/20101017092822/http://www.jamesmolloy.co.uk/tutorial_html/ http://web.archive.org/web/20101017092822/http://www.jamesmo...
chjj 15y ago
The only working mirror I could find: http://web.archive.org/web/20101019051118/http://www.jamesmolloy.co.uk/tutorial_html/index.html http://web.archive.org/web/20101019051118/http://www.jamesmo...
ams6110 15y ago
Andrew Tanenbaum's Operating Systems Design and Implementation, in which he uses MINIX as the teaching OS, is also good.
buster 15y ago
Wow.. that brings back memories of old days, text mode, directly writing into the graphic cards memory... :)
enneff 15y ago
Also see xv6, "a simple Unix-like teaching operating system": http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/2011/xv6.html http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/2011/xv6.html and its textbook: http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/2011/xv6/book-rev6.pdf http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/2011/xv6/book-rev6.pdf
- 4ad 15y ago
  Yep, great successor to Lions' Commentary on UNIX 6th Edition. Another great book in the same style is Notes on the Plan 9 3rd edition Kernel Source, also free: http://lsub.org/who/nemo/9.pdf http://lsub.org/who/nemo/9.pdf Plan 9 might be obscure to most HN readers, but fundamentally these books teach concepts, and the code base is much more clear and understandable than mainstream kernels.
  - muyuu 15y ago
    Looks really well written... man I have too much stuff stacked up in my to-read list.
  - Sodel 15y ago
    Holy crackers, that document is one of the most exciting things I've encountered in a long time. I had no idea it existed! I wish it was featured more prominently in the Plan 9 community. The Plan 9 source is really a work of art. I cannot wait to sink my teeth into this commentary. Thank you so much for sharing!
  - draven 15y ago
    Wow! I'm currently playing with some plan9front VMs (the plan9 fork from the cat-v.org people) and his intro to plan9 looks fantastic: http://lsub.org/who/nemo/9.intro.pdf http://lsub.org/who/nemo/9.intro.pdf I had trouble finding information on Plan9, thank you so much for this link!
xd 15y ago
If you go down this path, and I highly recommend every coder gives writing their own OS a go, be sure to bookmark: http://nondot.org/sabre/os/articles http://nondot.org/sabre/os/articles
exDM69 15y ago
This is a quite nice tutorial. There's a quite bit of half-chewed reference material in the osdev wiki. It's quite x86 centric, but that's what makes it especially valuable to me. I already have OS books that I read in Uni courses: http://wiki.osdev.org/ http://wiki.osdev.org/ Writing your own hobby operating system is a very nice project to learn about your computer's internals and hone your low level programming skills. Here's the start of my hobby OS: https://github.com/rikusalminen/danjeros https://github.com/rikusalminen/danjeros Also, don't be fooled to thinking that you won't need the skills professionally, because Linux/Windows/*BSD already exists. In fact, at work we have an original in-house small "toy" operating system, but it's not a toy. It's actually used for testing new system on chips when they roll out the factory as well as doing some special purpose tasks on actual devices that are shipped to millions of customers. It's only a few thousand lines of code and looks a lot like one of these schoolbook/hobby operating systems. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you anything more about it.
dhoe 15y ago
Is anybody aware of similar projects that target databases instead of operating systems?
- nodemaker 15y ago
  The book "Database Systems Implementation" by Hector Garcia Molina is a good start.Building a database system from scratch has one of the most rewarding exercises. Also check out this stanford course http://infolab.stanford.edu/~widom/cs346/ http://infolab.stanford.edu/~widom/cs346/
wtracy 15y ago
I'm aware that ARM is not a single, monolithic target like x86. That said, are there any articles that discuss ARM targeted at newbie OS developers?
akg 15y ago
An interesting take on Operating System design is the Synthesis Kernel that makes use of techniques like lockless data structures and run-time code synthesis: http://valerieaurora.org/synthesis/SynthesisOS/ http://valerieaurora.org/synthesis/SynthesisOS/
a3_nm 15y ago
Note that this tutorial is intended for the x86 architecture and for older versions of Bochs. If you're running an amd64 system or using a recent Bochs, you will need to tweak stuff in the Makefile and in bochsrc.txt.

159 points by fogus 15y ago

I'm not sure if he updated it on the site linked above (it's not loading for me), but as I remember James was working on a better code base for his tutorials. The theory on this website was good but the code had problems. The updated code was hosted at Google code - http://code.google.com/p/jamesm-tutorials/source/browse/ http://code.google.com/p/jamesm-tutorials/source/browse/

loeg 15y ago

Server seems severely overloaded -- here's the latest archive.org mirror: http://web.archive.org/web/20101017092822/http://www.jamesmolloy.co.uk/tutorial_html/ http://web.archive.org/web/20101017092822/http://www.jamesmo...

chjj 15y ago

The only working mirror I could find: http://web.archive.org/web/20101019051118/http://www.jamesmolloy.co.uk/tutorial_html/index.html http://web.archive.org/web/20101019051118/http://www.jamesmo...

ams6110 15y ago

Andrew Tanenbaum's Operating Systems Design and Implementation, in which he uses MINIX as the teaching OS, is also good.

buster 15y ago

Wow.. that brings back memories of old days, text mode, directly writing into the graphic cards memory... :)

enneff 15y ago

Also see xv6, "a simple Unix-like teaching operating system": http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/2011/xv6.html http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/2011/xv6.html and its textbook: http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/2011/xv6/book-rev6.pdf http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/2011/xv6/book-rev6.pdf

4ad 15y ago
Yep, great successor to Lions' Commentary on UNIX 6th Edition. Another great book in the same style is Notes on the Plan 9 3rd edition Kernel Source, also free: http://lsub.org/who/nemo/9.pdf http://lsub.org/who/nemo/9.pdf Plan 9 might be obscure to most HN readers, but fundamentally these books teach concepts, and the code base is much more clear and understandable than mainstream kernels.
- muyuu 15y ago
  Looks really well written... man I have too much stuff stacked up in my to-read list.
- Sodel 15y ago
  Holy crackers, that document is one of the most exciting things I've encountered in a long time. I had no idea it existed! I wish it was featured more prominently in the Plan 9 community. The Plan 9 source is really a work of art. I cannot wait to sink my teeth into this commentary. Thank you so much for sharing!
- draven 15y ago
  Wow! I'm currently playing with some plan9front VMs (the plan9 fork from the cat-v.org people) and his intro to plan9 looks fantastic: http://lsub.org/who/nemo/9.intro.pdf http://lsub.org/who/nemo/9.intro.pdf I had trouble finding information on Plan9, thank you so much for this link!

xd 15y ago

If you go down this path, and I highly recommend every coder gives writing their own OS a go, be sure to bookmark: http://nondot.org/sabre/os/articles http://nondot.org/sabre/os/articles

exDM69 15y ago

This is a quite nice tutorial. There's a quite bit of half-chewed reference material in the osdev wiki. It's quite x86 centric, but that's what makes it especially valuable to me. I already have OS books that I read in Uni courses: http://wiki.osdev.org/ http://wiki.osdev.org/ Writing your own hobby operating system is a very nice project to learn about your computer's internals and hone your low level programming skills. Here's the start of my hobby OS: https://github.com/rikusalminen/danjeros https://github.com/rikusalminen/danjeros Also, don't be fooled to thinking that you won't need the skills professionally, because Linux/Windows/*BSD already exists. In fact, at work we have an original in-house small "toy" operating system, but it's not a toy. It's actually used for testing new system on chips when they roll out the factory as well as doing some special purpose tasks on actual devices that are shipped to millions of customers. It's only a few thousand lines of code and looks a lot like one of these schoolbook/hobby operating systems. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you anything more about it.

dhoe 15y ago

Is anybody aware of similar projects that target databases instead of operating systems?

nodemaker 15y ago
The book "Database Systems Implementation" by Hector Garcia Molina is a good start.Building a database system from scratch has one of the most rewarding exercises. Also check out this stanford course http://infolab.stanford.edu/~widom/cs346/ http://infolab.stanford.edu/~widom/cs346/

wtracy 15y ago

I'm aware that ARM is not a single, monolithic target like x86. That said, are there any articles that discuss ARM targeted at newbie OS developers?

akg 15y ago

An interesting take on Operating System design is the Synthesis Kernel that makes use of techniques like lockless data structures and run-time code synthesis: http://valerieaurora.org/synthesis/SynthesisOS/ http://valerieaurora.org/synthesis/SynthesisOS/

a3_nm 15y ago

Note that this tutorial is intended for the x86 architecture and for older versions of Bochs. If you're running an amd64 system or using a recent Bochs, you will need to tweak stuff in the Makefile and in bochsrc.txt.