The author of the hobby OS Blueillusion writes:“I present BlueIllusionOS (current version: 0.036 – 07112004), an Operating System for i386 architecture, which I am working on for two and a half years now. It is still in its childhood stages, but nevertheless, I’ve already implemented a variety of features: Lazy Paging, GUI (with sevaral widgets), ext2 read only support, PCI support and a text shell with command history.
The GUI currently supports only 1024*762*8bpp, so it might look a bit odd. I’m working on other resolutions – and on widgets like MenuItem,Menu,MenuBar.
You can check it out at www.distantvoices.org. Just click on the BlueIllusionOS Link on the main page and there you are. Althou’ my site is kept in German language, I’ve written everything concerning OS development in english.
As I’ve got quite some help from other OS Developers, I keep the sources of BlueIllusion open for everyone to look at, take and play with ad to learn. It is my way to give something back.
“
looks interesting, as it is in a linux zipped format which i do not run, has anyone else here downloaded and seen this os running? I’d be interested to know your thoughts…
Nice to see more hobby OSes developed, even if only for the sake of learning.
Interestingly compared to 5-10 years ago most OSes these days seem to incorporate a GUI much earlier, while the older OSes mostly focused on microkernelness and studd like that.
I think its definitely nice to see some colors earlier in the development process
distantvoices: congratulations with the first official notification for your operating system
. You already mentioned it quite often, and now I can finally learn more about it!
Keep it going!
You mean, a bzip’d tar?
http://www.7-zip.org/ you lazy windows user!
(If you’re on a Mac, you have even less excuse, since it has the tools built right in)
Awesome, Linux will finally have a true competitor. This already looks awesome! I’m not sure what kind of drugs the developer’s taking, but I want some of it!
Just look at the pretty colors
Doesn’t WinZip support .tar.bz2? I know .tar.gz has been supported for a long time.
The design seem to remind me of the QNX microkernel. If the IPC can be kept clean and fast it would make for nice little embedded type of OS.
Kind of strange to not use the TSS for task management. He does not seem to explain the rational of using software based context switching. Would the cost of context switches be less then in a system using TSS? I can see that as a VERY important performance issue in a microkernel.
TSS context switching on modern x86 processors is extremely slow. AMD64 doesn’t even support TSS-based switching in 64-bit mode. TSS descriptors are still necessary to handle stuff like I/O port permissions, but on many OSs (including Linux), the actual switch is done in software.
I had no idea if winzip or whatever supports linux zipped files. It also not lazy because one does not have knowledge, it is something one learns. Do not turn this review of an excellent looking hobby os in to your windows bashing…
Neither bzip2 nor tar have anything to do with Linux. Both are available for most common (and many uncommon) platforms.
An eazy way to find things out is searching the web. For instance, try http://www.google.com and enter relevant keywords (in this case i would suggest e.g. “bzip2”).
GNU/Linux systems have no special zip format. The bzip compression algorithm has nothing to do with neither the Linux kernel or GNU/Linux systems.
This looks great. Good job!
http://www.distantvoices.org/
Nice work! It’s good to see another OS popup even if it is a pure hobby OS.
having fun and learning something is a very valid reason, in my eyes. if you have fun with something different (like me, for example) – simply do something different.
blueillusion is a funny small hobby os and one-man effort.
hope to cross it again in future.
Who didn’t tried to write its own OS?
Who didn’t tried to write its own OS?
Bill Gates.
It’s always great when OSNews features these beginning OS projects. I think most people realize how much time, energy and “learning smarts” it takes for an individual to put together an operating system that reflects what they believe is the right grouping of concepts and purpose. This project with a good looking website, screenshots, documentation and with an OS for people to try out will be fun to watch develop.
congratulations to the developper, his os looks quite advanced and interesting (specially for me who doesn’t even code an “hello world”).
I was wondering which kind of license he was considering to put his os, as the sources are available. I hope it is/will be GPL.
tar/bzip is not a “linux zip format.” Tar and bzip formats are *nix realitive, furthermore “zipped” is directly related to the Zip format and nothing else. We say something is “tarred” or “tar/bzed”.
Smoked too much crack or dont know any history, do you. The first OS Microsoft wrote an OS (and to be clear Bill Gates did work on it) was Basic for the Altair.
Open a book before you open your mouth next time.
keep it up.
Good to see that the art of hobbyist programming’s still with us. (Just for the record, Linux was started “just for fun”, and now it’s eating Microsoft’s lunch. Linus Torvalds is still doing it “just for fun”, and it must be one of the only jobs where you get paid for enjoying yourself.)
And frankly, I think the claim that it’s “reinventing the wheel” is just a bit too stale. Operating Systems and wheels are a tad too far apart in terms of complexity – try a new comparison please?!
While it is really nice to see people giving the deserved credit to a brave soul for the huge effort of putting together an own OS,
I feel pretty annoyed to read so many redundant posts
about gzip/bzip2 being not Linux specific and whatnot.
If one can’t uncompress a .bz file, they would be probably unable to install a young OS either. I didn’t see anyone answering the actual question of that person – asking for your personal opinions about the OS actually *running*.
Pointing out that a file can be unpacked with a program X is fine, but doing it once is more than sufficient. Further flames don’t contribute to the discussion, whose topic is the BlueIllusion OS after all, and not WinZip’s capabilities.
Just my 2 stotinki.
We say something is “tarred” or “tar/bzed”.
Really? It seems to me that it’s impossible to actually *say* bzed
How do you pronounce that? ‘buzzed’?
The Altair ran CP/M, Microsoft BASIC was an application which ran on top of that. Gates did write some of the code when he, Allen, and others ported Dartmouth BASIC to the 8080. So that doesn’t count as Gates writing an OS. BASIC isn’t an OS, and he didn’t write BASIC, he ported public domain code to the 8080.
Microsoft later wrote firmware, including BASIC, which ran systems such as the Radio Shack Color Computer. When I disassembled that code, I was amazed to see that there was no clear distinction between an OS and the BASIC interpreter. It was all one program that did everything. I couldn’t find any indication of a layered approach with an OS providing core services and BASIC as an application running on top of that.
Microsoft purchased DOS, which was reverse engineered from CP/M. That’s the first instance that I know of where Microsoft sold an OS. I must tip my hat to Gates for licensing DOS to IBM before he actually owned it!
Pick up a book and read it. There are several which document the history of Microsoft. You might learn something.
Gates can hack assembly, but has never seemed to grasp the purpose of abstraction and modularity in software. Whenever he gets closely involved, systems start to revert back to that vision of one giant program that does everything. I think that also explains why stuff creeps into kernel space which really shouldn’t be there. Gates doesn’t understand the need for separation. Fortunately, Microsoft has skilled people who do understand systems architecture, and they sometimes (not always) have a chance to do the right thing.
Gates deserves attention as a businessman, not a programmer.
All kidding aside it looks like WinDos or SEAL(of course these OS’s are merely DOS shells) or maybe a primitive version of menuetOS as far as the GUI goes and being an end user i dont really understand the inner workings of the kernal ,to me it’s like a car I dont know what makes it go on the technical level but if it runs good I’ll drive it!Windows reminds me of an aging Cadillac when all the excessive power relays and automatic amenities start to short out causing frequent trips to the overpriced repair shop.I have a frind that has several Ford Mavericks and I alkways wondered why till I looked under the hood of one and just about anyone with a socket set and a few wrenches can do anything to one of those puppies.So theres one reason to write your own OS if you are so talented,to get around paying M$ for all those fixes and sevice packs and antivirus stuff.Do it yourself!Right on!
“B-zipped”
Commonly they’re referred to as “tarballs” and the bzip2/gzip part is ignored/assumed – since tar doesn’t compress and the tar command will handle bzip2 or gzip for you with one switch, it’s reasonably uncommon to find uncompressed tarballs anyway.
Bill Gates “didn’t write BASIC, he ported public domain code to the 8080”
BASIC was then a “public domain”? How? – in source code? Where did you find the information?
Mark
PS
But generally I agree with your opinions according Gates 🙂
Microsoft BASIC was on MSX computers too (together with MSX-DOS)
To give Bill his due Microsoft BASIC was also optomised for the 8080, so it wasn’t just a strait port.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC_programming_language#Explosive_g…
The section above this implies that Dartmouth BASIC was public domain, as was much of the software of this period, this is also implied by BASIC being a set of standards, since you can’t really copywrite the idea and patents where not in general use for protecting software, I’m not even sure if they where applicable at all in 1964 when BASIC was invented.
# ANSI Standard for Minimal BASIC (X3.60-1978)
# ANSI Standard for Full BASIC (X3.113-1987)
# ISO Standard for Minimal BASIC (ISO 6373:1984 Data processing – Programming languages – Minimal BASIC)
# ISO Standard for Full BASIC (ISO/IEC 10279:1991 Information technology – Programming languages – Full BASIC)
But back on topic, its interesting that a GUI is considered required so early in the development process. We’ve progressed a long way from when the Mac was considered a ‘toy’ because it had one, now it is almost required.
I’d advise using CoLinux, its the best thing since sliced bread – ok actually its better.
I’ve tried running the BlueIllusion image in Bochs (2.1.1 on Win2K) and it appears to get stuck at init. I get the message:
…
MMSERV: No VBE2.0 available
fsserv: init…._
Neither the the Elpin or LGPL VGA rom images seem to work (Elpin gives less error messages) – any ideas what am I doing wrong? The website shows screenshots from Bochs so it must be possible!
In Qemu it works. In VMWare it works too.
I have some problems with the Bochs – not liking my floppy driver – which I canna resolve easily. It might need some time ere this will be resolved so that BlueIllusion boots in BOCHS. Current release does not boot up in BOCHS.
Here is the Link to QEMU:
http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/
Fetch an appropriate binary image, install it and then
say: qemu -fda [yourtestdirectory][Blueillusion_floppy_img]
According to my last tests, it will boot up with no problems.
HTH 🙂
Thanks for the info, will try qemu on my linux box at home.
p.s. Congrats on BlueIllusion – from what I can tell from the website and code it looks nice – can’t wait to test it 🙂
Well, if I were going to be stranded on a desert island, I’d pick sliced bread over CoLinux any day.