VSBL - Very Simple BootLoader

VSBL is a Very Simple BootLoader and a set of fundamental modules that can load kernel written in C++.

Kernel is loaded in long 64-bit mode.

Entry point for C++ code is void kmain() function in src/Kernel.cpp. You can find loaders for each stage(Real mode, Protected mode and Long mode) here.

Supported features:

• Physical memory scanning
• Dynamic memory allocation
• C++ global constructors calling
• PS/2 controller support
• APIC and I/O APIC support
• ACPI basic system tables parsing
• PS/2 keyboard handling
• Terminal printing like cout in C++
• PCI management
• AHCI driver
• CMake build system
• AM79C970A network driver

Build

Requirements

cmake, yasm, g++, ld and objcopy

Compilation

mkdir cmake-build-release
cd cmake-build-release
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
cmake --build . --target VSBL

There are two versions of compiled kernel image: ./out/boot.img (Version for VirtualBox. Aligned to 1MB size) or ./out/boot/img.old (Version for booting on real machine)

VirtualBox VM

You can test your kernel in VirtualBox virtual machine.

To create VM:

./init.sh

To start VM:

First run

cmake --build . --target VSBL_VBox_Medium_Create

Further runs

cmake --build . --target VSBL_VBox_Update