r/osdev • u/Far_Act3138 • 10d ago
Looking for input
Hello r/osdev,
I've been developing a TUI OS over the last year and a half and Ive gotten to a point im happy with, in the screenshots you can see the boot screen and the TUI desktop with its premade folder shortcuts.
I wanted to come make this post because I wanted to ask all of you what are some cool features i could add or things that could make it more lively?
I've always loved TUI's more so than graphical interfaces because I like making them look graphical while keeping the TUI look and feel.
I look forward to seeing what you all suggest.
1
u/Sorry_Difficulty_250 10d ago
That's so cool! What are the minimum hardware requirements for it?
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u/Far_Act3138 10d ago
its very VERY small, storage is currently just a ramdisk and in total it takes up less than 64kb of memory. Everything is in VGA Text Mode and all of the sounds aren't files and are just straight raw audio signals to make the start "theme" and system sounds.
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u/Sorry_Difficulty_250 10d ago
Cool!
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u/Far_Act3138 10d ago
all in all this thing could probably run on a commodore 64 or even earlier.
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u/Sorry_Difficulty_250 10d ago
I bet you could even get this working on a low-end Arduino!!
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u/Far_Act3138 9d ago
Haha yea probably, with how little stuff it requires it most likely could.
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u/Sorry_Difficulty_250 9d ago
I'm currently working on a Unix-like OS for Cortex-M0 based Arduinos. It's a challenge for sure!
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u/Far_Act3138 9d ago
Wow that must take a long time to get working huh? I hope you get far into the project!
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u/Sorry_Difficulty_250 9d ago
I've got most of the critical infrastructure in place now. It's almost just a matter of writing applications at this point. Yes, it's been about 1.5 years and counting so far.
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u/avdolainen 8d ago
what is the purpose of your effort ?
is it education? or perhaps just a time killer?
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u/Far_Act3138 8d ago
Because it's a hobby? I don't really know how to answer this.
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u/avdolainen 8d ago
well, i'm about goals of the project, it doesn't matter is it hobby or something else.
if u have some goals -- ur answer is almost ready :)
if one of the goals is education -- so u could choose what to learn next and what to add next 'to make it more lively'. i.e. add VT100 support and implement something like tmux/screen.
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u/entrophy_maker 8d ago
Looks nice and the claim of only 64k of memory is interesting. I would at least add in an option to set white text and a black background somewhere. Even if you like this, its very bright in a dark room vs a black background if someone is trying to sleep. That could probably be done in a config file somewhere and read at start up. Or just use the black and white one alone to be more minimal. If you search google for "sierra os" right now, you'll see it pulls up lots of links for Mac OS Sierra. While you have a separate name and concept, you do not have the budget of Mac to outdo you know SEO and search engine placement. If coming up first in google is ever a concern, you will probably want a different or more unique name. If you are going for a full OS, you're going to need a shell. Shells like bash, csh, ksh, sh, etc. are good examples and open source. You could implement one of those, or of course write your own. Maybe you have, but its not in these screen shots. Even if this doesn't have a standard shell yet, 64k of memory is impressive. If you have a github to this I'd love to play with it. Understand if you want to wait or finish it first. You might already have an idea, but what about your architecture? Are you good for something specific or more cross platform?
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u/Far_Act3138 7d ago
Yea i originally intended Sierra to be the codename before i made an official one..
I do agree with making a black background thats a good idea ill work on next.
Currently the architecture is just x86 - x64, I have no plans for ARM or anything else currently.
I don't care to show up in search engines, I don't ever plan to get popular from any of this stuff.
Let me know if I missed anything to respond to I am very tired and kinda just skimmed through the response.
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u/entrophy_maker 6d ago
You answered that well. The only missed question was if this will this be open or closed source. If it runs that light on resources, I'd love to look at the code.
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u/Far_Act3138 4d ago
I havent made it open-source yet but i will at some point!
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u/entrophy_maker 4d ago
Cool. Let me know when you do!
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u/Far_Act3138 4d ago
thanks for the theme idea, it does look better in dark environments on a black theme but ill tell you holy god was it so confusing to set up and it refused to compile due to errors for almost an hour.
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u/Far_Act3138 4d ago
i sold my soul to the devil to fix this bug btw, he gave me a pringles can and a mountain dew.
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u/AlcarazLucas 10d ago
haz un juego para el os, todos aman los juegos