BenOS

A small operating system I'm currently developing

Main Features

• Serial Connection
• Virtual Memory (paging, no swapping)
• Multitasking
• VGA (currently only 320x200x8)
• VGA double buffering
• Keyboard & Mouse (only PS/2, no USB)
• 3 VGA ASCII text sizes (16x16, 12x12, 8x8)
• Stack-Smashing-Protector (gcc -fstack-protector)
• Very basic exception handling with sys_excep(const char* msg);

User Interface

• v0.1
  • a simple x86 text-mode based editor
  • requires keyboard
  • supports mouse
  • controlls:
    • select color: ALT + (0 to 9, A to F)
    • select background color: additionally hold shift
    • CTRL + DEL for reboot (doesn't work on all machines)
• v0.2+
  • a simple VGA-based paint program
  • requires keyboard & mouse
  • controlls:
    • same as with v0.1 except you don't have to hold ALT
    • ESC to clear screen

Building

First you need a compiler to build the project.
Since I currently don't have a os-specific compiler you have to build it on your own.
You can find the Tools as a release.
Dependencies:

• make
• nasm
• xorriso
• and of course the gcc toolchain, which you built already

Burning on a flash drive/CDROM

DISCLAIMER: Please be carefull you can accidently format a different drive.
DISCLAIMER: This is only tested on Linux. It may or may not work with WSL.
For burning the .iso you should write:
make burn device=/dev/(insert your drive here)
This asks you to enter you admin user/password.
If you don't trust just look at the Makefile
You can find all drives with lsblk
example: make burn device=/dev/sdc

TODO (priority order: top to down)

• Add filesystem support
• Add more system calls
• Add more video modes
• Add USB support
• Implement a shell
• Implement a BASIC interpreter
• Create OS-specific compiler

Sources

• lowlevel.eu
• osdev.org
• wyoos.org (Viktor Engelmann)
• wikipedia.org