adamholisky / versionsix

Version 6

Version 6 is a hobbist operating system designed to let one mess with underlying tech that normally isn't used in day-to-day high level development. I've been playing with OS development since college, and this is the sixth iteration (over 20-years) of my hobbyist OS.

All code is open sourced, written by Adam Holisky in his spare time unless otherwise noted.

Contact me VIA: Email [e-mail] -- Twitter @adamholisky -- BlueSky @adamholisky.bsky.social

What is Version 6

Vision

A small, lean operating system/supervisor that allows direct hardware interfacing useful for tinkering with different aspects of modern technology. Runs on x86 and ARM processors with an abstracted technology layer, masking differences between architectures.

Current Goals

The "Big Goal" for right now is to laser focus on getting a Telnet connection established via TCP/IP over an emulated Ethernet device and network.

Goal	Status	Comments
Keep it simple	🟢	Prefer readablity over optimization whenever possible
C++, C, Assembly	🟢	Prefer C++ when possible, otherwise C and Assembly as needed
Clean build system	🟢	Don't over-complicated the build system, but don't shy away from advanced topics
Completely in x86_64, no 32bit code	🟢	Loaded via Limine
Basic paging	🟡	Allocating and page maping with own page tables
Basic memory management	🟡	Linear allocator
Basic interrupts	🟡	Enough to handle exceptions, timer, etc...
I/O via Serial	🟢	Debug out and stdio via QEMU's serial ports works
In-OS sanity checks	🟡	Some sanity checks run regardless, more run when debugging is enabled for specific code blocks
Basic console on framebuffer	🟡	Good enough, maybe
PCI	🟡	Good enough to get basic info for devices
Ethernet	🟡	Good enough, maybe
ARP	🟡	Protocol works, need to do dictionary
IP	🟡	Good enough, maybe
DHCP	🟡	Good enough, maybe
TCP	🟡	Working in a PoC stage
Task Management	🟡	Yielding-based, handles crashes
Telnet	🟠	Working in a very basic way
HTTP/Json	🔴	Not started

Future Goals

Goal	Status	Comments
ARM support	🔴	TBD
Smooth looking Text UI	🔴	Borland C called and wants its UI back
Scripting language	🔴	Sketched out basic HyperTalk-like language
Heap memory managment	🔴	Ready to be implemented, mostly independent of paging
Unit tests	🔴	TBD
Run on real hardware	🔴	Should be possible to do with a basic board

Compile and Usage Guide

Host and Build Setup

The host system should have set up:

• Cross-compile GCC, G++, GAS, ELF Linker
• QEMU emulating x86_64
• Some sort of loopback/disk image mounting

Makefile targets are clearly outlined in the Makefile, with supported includes in the build_support/control/*.mk files, notably the toolchain.mk file which contains direct links to the compilers that the build system will use.

Compling

make run by itself in the root directory will build the system.

Running

From the root directory, do a make run to execute the OS's normal operation path.

For normal execution, the Makefile and QEMU are configured to send data accordingly:

• build_support/logs/build.log Output for the build commands
• build_support/logs/elfdump.txt ELF information for compiled kernel
• build_support/logs/objdump.txt Full disassembly for compiled kernel, including final addresses via the linker
• build_support/logs/serial_out.txt Running serial log from OS's COM4 port output
• build_support/logs/qemu_debug_log.txt has a bunch of detailed output from QEMU, very useful for tripple faults
• stderr Error output from G++, etc...
• stdin/stdout QEMU's "terminal" in/out, sending to/from in OS's COM1 port I/O

Debugger

From the root directory, run make run_debug to boot the OS with QEMU accepting remote connections to port 5984. Run make gdb to run GDB using the configuration in the build_support/gdb_control/commands.gdb file (TUI, some shortcuts, etc...)

Breakpoints are manually listed in the commands.gdb file.

Kanban Task List

This is genereally the order that I'm going to build things.

1. Limine boot into x86 64bit
2. Makefile cleanup, logging
3. Serial out
4. Port the libc back to 64bit and verify it basically works
5. Debug logging
6. Find paging data from limine, use it or my own entirely
7. Interrupts
8. Interrupt debug display
9. Page allocation and allocator
10. Linear memory allocator
11. Kernel symbols loaded via ELF processing, used in crash handling
12. Stackframe back trace
13. PCI
14. Ethernet
15. ARP
16. Ping
17. Telnet