Sooo, how can I start learning about OSs
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I really want to get into low-level programming and understand OS. How can I get myself into it? Like is there some material you know that it could be interesting to start designing basic OS such as MINIX or programming an ESP8266 board?
Just saw this post and I think a great place to start is with Linux (systems programming) and understanding what the OS does. It'll provide a good foundation to maybe later "writing your own little os" -- booting up hardware and running a little kernel of some type. So, to reiterate, really learn about Linux systems programming because you'll get a lot of understanding the challenges that other devs had to solve. And to really learn in depth that systems programming take a look at the fantastic book which will guide you through writing programs in Linux, The Linux Programming Interface: A Linux and UNIX System Programming Handbook[^] by Michael Kerrisk. That book will help you get a foundation so you don't feel overwhelmed by the huge topic of OSes
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I really want to get into low-level programming and understand OS. How can I get myself into it? Like is there some material you know that it could be interesting to start designing basic OS such as MINIX or programming an ESP8266 board?
There are emulated CPU's with reduced function sets, specifically so you can practice opcode instructions. You can buy an FPGA board with some basic RAM and a DSP to practice VHDL and low level drivers loaded into RAM, which helps to explain the role of hardware VS machine instructions. After that you can take a look at actual PC hardware. Do some MASM, some C, some C++ and some C#. Then roll your own "Linux from scratch" and make it compile and run those 4 languages. That should cover everything, I think. Might take a while though.
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I really want to get into low-level programming and understand OS. How can I get myself into it? Like is there some material you know that it could be interesting to start designing basic OS such as MINIX or programming an ESP8266 board?
If you start from scratch, master your C and at least some assembler programming in your platform of choice, as it will be needed for some of the startup code. As for books, I studied on the Silberschatz / Gagne / Galvin Operating Systems Concepts. It is a monster doorstopper of a book and it costs a kidney but it's worth it. If you start practicing on some embedded stuff with ARM you should be able to see the lowest level of controlling the CPU without much overhead, in this day and age it's definitely simpler than trying to wrestle with full kernels like Linux and it's not expensive.
GCS/GE d--(d) s-/+ a C+++ U+++ P-- L+@ E-- W+++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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I really want to get into low-level programming and understand OS. How can I get myself into it? Like is there some material you know that it could be interesting to start designing basic OS such as MINIX or programming an ESP8266 board?
Well, easy to ask but somewhat hard to answer... I had almost the same question roughly 35 years ago. Here's what I suggest: Read The Design and Implementation of the Unix System V by Maurice Bach. Dive into the sources of Minix 1.5 (the first one leveraging protected mode) and read Tannenbaum's documentation on this OS (I guess that's what Linus did as well before he coded his first kernel...). Read the INTEL 80386 PROGRAMMER'S REFERENCE MANUAL 1986 to gain an understanding of how HW supports OS design ideas. Sure, these resources are old, but the basic concepts they tell about are still valid. While studying you will certainly encounter new questions, and grasping the answers (with help of Google) will lead you step-by-step into the present of OS design.
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I really want to get into low-level programming and understand OS. How can I get myself into it? Like is there some material you know that it could be interesting to start designing basic OS such as MINIX or programming an ESP8266 board?
I learned initially from this: https://www.amazon.com/Operating-Systems-Implementation-Prentice-Hall-Software/dp/0136374069[^] I used this book so thoroughly that it was worn out: https://www.amazon.com/LINUX-Kernel-Internals-Michael-Beck/dp/0201877414[^] That second book came with a CD in 1996/7 that had Slackware on it, which did not support my soundblaster clone soundcard. I had to write my own driver (translation: "I copied the existing soundblaster driver and modified it to work with my clone"). The book was definitely helpful, though.
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I really want to get into low-level programming and understand OS. How can I get myself into it? Like is there some material you know that it could be interesting to start designing basic OS such as MINIX or programming an ESP8266 board?
If you are looking at ESP8266 then Linux is too big by far. I'd suggest looking at FreeRTOS. It is not a full featured OS but it does have a scheduler that you have a hope of understanding, code for task switching and the bonus of exploring a real-time OS, and it fits on a ESP8266.
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I really want to get into low-level programming and understand OS. How can I get myself into it? Like is there some material you know that it could be interesting to start designing basic OS such as MINIX or programming an ESP8266 board?
Go for books by
Andrew S Tanenbaum
It is *the* book on this subject. I cannot praise it enough. This guy wanted his students to learn this subject so bad that he wrote an operating system from scratch (Minix, the actual birthplace of Linux).
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I really want to get into low-level programming and understand OS. How can I get myself into it? Like is there some material you know that it could be interesting to start designing basic OS such as MINIX or programming an ESP8266 board?
I've been working through a course on Udemy called Developing a Multithreaded Kernel From Scratch by Daniel McCarthy. This course is kind of a walkthrough and you will have to put in work on the side to fully understand some of the topics. Develop a Multithreaded Kernel From Scratch. Much of the material seems to come from OSDev, but for me that is okay. I'm fine with repackaging content so I can code along because more important than reading about stuff is doing stuff. When I want to know how something works in more detail I can go read more details on OSDev and other sites. I think this is my first interaction on Code Project. I've been lurking for a couple decades I'd imagine. This topic is something that I think is so beneficial these days I was compelled to provide more information. If you're familiar with the Udemy game then play it and wait for course to be lower price. I don't know or am not affiliated with Daniel, but I've enjoyed a couple of his walkthrough style courses.
“The purpose of thinking is to let the ideas die instead of us dying.” - Alfred Whitehead
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I really want to get into low-level programming and understand OS. How can I get myself into it? Like is there some material you know that it could be interesting to start designing basic OS such as MINIX or programming an ESP8266 board?
Microsoft officially released the source code to DOS 1.25 and 2.0. It can also help give you ideas about OS design. [GitHub - microsoft/MS-DOS: The original sources of MS-DOS 1.25 and 2.0, for reference purposes](https://github.com/microsoft/MS-DOS)
Jeremy Falcon
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I really want to get into low-level programming and understand OS. How can I get myself into it? Like is there some material you know that it could be interesting to start designing basic OS such as MINIX or programming an ESP8266 board?
I started by learning about IBM OS/360 and IBM System\370 Principles of Operation. Everthing was based on Linked Lists. If modern processors included certain features that were used in these machines, we would not have nearly as many hacking successes.
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I really want to get into low-level programming and understand OS. How can I get myself into it? Like is there some material you know that it could be interesting to start designing basic OS such as MINIX or programming an ESP8266 board?
You're going to have to do some reading on your own ... a superficial knowledge of a complex subject will mean you won't understand much of what you are told to do. Things like: Operating Systems Fundamentals.
"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I
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I really want to get into low-level programming and understand OS. How can I get myself into it? Like is there some material you know that it could be interesting to start designing basic OS such as MINIX or programming an ESP8266 board?
You could look at uC/OS by Jean Labrosse. It's a small real time kernel developed back in the early 90's. He's got a few books out on uC/OS versions (version 1, 2 and 3). I've got the original book and it explains how things work pretty well. I actually used uC/OS in a project at work way back when. It pretty much got me started using RTOSes.
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I've been working through a course on Udemy called Developing a Multithreaded Kernel From Scratch by Daniel McCarthy. This course is kind of a walkthrough and you will have to put in work on the side to fully understand some of the topics. Develop a Multithreaded Kernel From Scratch. Much of the material seems to come from OSDev, but for me that is okay. I'm fine with repackaging content so I can code along because more important than reading about stuff is doing stuff. When I want to know how something works in more detail I can go read more details on OSDev and other sites. I think this is my first interaction on Code Project. I've been lurking for a couple decades I'd imagine. This topic is something that I think is so beneficial these days I was compelled to provide more information. If you're familiar with the Udemy game then play it and wait for course to be lower price. I don't know or am not affiliated with Daniel, but I've enjoyed a couple of his walkthrough style courses.
“The purpose of thinking is to let the ideas die instead of us dying.” - Alfred Whitehead
Hi, Go check out grc.com. The entire site is written in assembler and does provide a means of getting in to assembler. That will get you familiar with a language that works the bits and bytes directly.
Regards, Cegarman document code? If it's not intuitive, you're in the wrong field :D
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I really want to get into low-level programming and understand OS. How can I get myself into it? Like is there some material you know that it could be interesting to start designing basic OS such as MINIX or programming an ESP8266 board?
You already have a lot of indications on how to do it. I just say... tough topic, brave intention. Go for it, work hard and good luck :)
M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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I really want to get into low-level programming and understand OS. How can I get myself into it? Like is there some material you know that it could be interesting to start designing basic OS such as MINIX or programming an ESP8266 board?
Here's a reimplementation of Unix V. 6 for modern hardware that was made precisely for the learning of operating system design. Called XV6, it's all in C so it's very simple. 6.1810 / Fall 2022[^] Some reference: xv6 - Wikipedia[^]