Poll: why are you making an os?

[Brendan]

Hi,

First came Windows 95 - the OS that was 5 years too late. Then came the Internet (and networking in general). My plans changed from "realmode OS with decent GUI" to "protected mode distributed OS with decent GUI".

If you had a decent 486SX, why on earth did you decide to use real mode on it? I spent a lot of money on a 386SX just because I already had decided that real mode was crap, and I needed a "modern" CPU that was 32-bit. (I also had decided that 286 was crap as well, primarily because it lacked paging and had no real-mode emulation mode).

I used real mode because I didn't know better ("This was before anyone I knew had Internet access though").

At the time I'd hadn't seen an Intel manual, was using the "16-bit only" version of a shareware assembler, and the only debugger I had was DOS's "debug.exe". The information I did have was a copy of The Peter Norton Programmer's Guide that I borrowed from a public library and never returned, about 6 photo-copied pages from another book describing the 80386 instruction set, and nothing else.

My plans have changed from "protected mode distributed OS with decent GUI" to "redesign and replace all the crap". It's not really an OS project anymore - the OS is just the most obvious place to start.

That's really ambitious. I've decided I'm content if I never ever will have to write anything more professionally for M$-products, and if I don't need to learn "cloud programming".

It's ambitious; but hopefully I'll only need to finish enough for people to see the benefits.


Cheers,

Brendan

[Love4Boobies]

I don't need to learn "cloud programming".

Sounds like you really despise scalability coupled with abstraction. I would advise people to do the opposite: write all programs with the cloud in mind even if you don't need to---you will be glad you did. If anyone is curious, edX offers two courses on SaaS (although they focus quite a bit on agile development) and Coursera one on concurrent/networked software design patterns.

[sharkwikios]

for knowledge purpose. i have long lost passion of communicating with scsi & usb device.Another picking up passion is communicating with flash devices and interest on virtual machines & algorithm performance evaluation.

all the available OS'es, demands learning their system and playing around it and not sure even after learning all that, i can still claim about my basic understanding of OS core concepts. Also, my working domain demands this knowledge.

My Idea is to have a bare minimum kernel{ in which i know each line of code and it' importance }, and start playing with these variety of devices and learn fundamentals of each to stay longer in technical stream.

[abraker95]

I want to see how far I will get. It is not all about making an OS. In my last attempt 2 years ago, I made a bootable Etcho-Sketch game in Asm. Now let me see if I can do something more advanced in C.

[LieutenantHacker]

Because I want to make the big companies feel threatened by my work.

[Mikemk]

Because I want to make the big companies feel threatened by my work.

Called it.
Oh, and Beginner_Mistakes

[LieutenantHacker]

I'm not a beginner, and I was joking. Sure, it would be cool to compete against top companies, but that's a bit unrealtistic for one person to desire, hence, joke.

[Mikemk]

but that's a bit unrealtistic for one person to desire

No It's not. What's ridiculous and results in failure is using said desire as your motivation. Once the OS is good enough where people would want to buy it, it becomes a very realistic goal, you just don't have any hope of that until that point.

[LieutenantHacker]

Given that I wish to sell it in the first place, then maybe. Maybe.

But I assume you don't think it's realistic for one person to compete against Microsoft's Windows all by their self.

[Mikemk]

But I assume you don't think it's realistic for one person to compete against Microsoft's Windows all by their self.

Why not? Bill Gates did it.

[Kazinsal]

But I assume you don't think it's realistic for one person to compete against Microsoft's Windows all by their self.

Why not? Bill Gates did it.

There are so many things wrong with that statement that I don't even know where to begin.

[Brendan]

Hi,

But I assume you don't think it's realistic for one person to compete against Microsoft's Windows all by their self.

It's not realistic for one person to compete against Microsoft's Windows all by themselves.

However; it is realistic for one person to create something minimal (e.g. boot code, micro-kernel, a small number of drivers, VFS and GUI) that inspires a large number of volunteers; and it is possible for this large number of volunteers to compete against Microsoft's Windows.

Note: You can't inspire anyone with a "unix like" clone as it'd be too similar to Linux/*BSD/OpenSolaris. You'd need unique and innovative features that no other OS has, plus software that uses/demonstrates the value of those features.

An alternative approach is to avoid competing against Microsoft's Windows by targeting a niche (e.g. write an OS specifically for NAS or routers or something else; rather than writing a general purpose OS).


Cheers,

Brendan

[iansjack]

I'm fairly sure that Bill Gates never competed against Windows. Or are you thinking of OS/2?

[LieutenantHacker]

I thought Bill Gates hired people to work for him.

[Mikemk]

Gates founded microsoft by himself, competing against previously existing companies. Of course, he did have steve jobs as a partner.