os-tutorial/14-checkpoint

Concepts you may want to Google beforehand: monolithic kernel, microkernel Goal: Pause and organize our code a little bit

Maybe you didn't realize it, but you already have your own kernel running!

However, it does very little, just print an 'X'. Now is the time to stop for a moment and organize the code into folders, create a scalable Makefile for future code, and think on a strategy.

Take a look at the new folder structure. Most of the files have been symlinked from previous lessons, so if we have to change them at some point, it will be a better idea to remove the symlink and create a new file.

Strategy

We will want to do many things with our OS:

• Handle screen output and keyboard input, for starters
• A tiny, basic libc
• Memory management
• Interrupt handling
• Write a filesystem to store files
• Create a very simple shell
• Maybe we will write a simple text editor
• Multiple processes and scheduling

Probably we will go through them in that order, however it's soon to tell.

If we feel brave enough:

• A BASIC interpreter, like in the 70s!
• A GUI
• Networking

You may notice that, since this is a tutorial, we haven't yet discussed which kind of kernel we will write. It will probably be a monolithic one since they are easier to design and implement, and after all this is our first OS. Maybe in the future we'll add a lesson "15-b" with a microkernel design. Who knows.