VU-Kernel

About

VU-Kernel is a small kernel written in C.

The current target architecture is i386(32 bit version of the x86 ISA).

Currently implemented features:

• Printing to the screen
• Getting keyboard input
• GDT and IDT are set up
• Paging
• Memory Management (allocation/deallocation)
• ATA Driver
• Start of a VFS, with support for FAT12
• Shell-like REPL called Chell

Prerequisites

A number of programs must be installed before VU-Kernel can be run:

• make
  • Version 4.1
  • Used to easily compile and run the kernel
• gcc
  • Version 7.3.0
  • Used to compile the .c files
• nasm
  • Version 2.13.02
  • Use to compile .nasm files
• binutils
  • Includes ld which links .o files
• qemu
  • Version 2.11.1
  • System Emulation, that runs the VU-Kernel image

Running VU-Kernel

Running VU-Kernel is as simple as typing:

make qemu

This will create a bootable .iso file, used by qemu.

Make targets

• kernel
  • Builds the VU-Kernel binary, located at vu-kernel/kernel
• qemu
  • Builds the VU-Kernel binary and runs it in qemu
• iso
  • Builds a bootable iso image, with VU-kernel as the boot image

Chell

Chell is a shell-like REPL.

The loop of Chell is shown below:

Some commands include:

• ls - list the files located on the atteched ATA drive
• pci - print information about any connected PCI devices
• logo - print the Chell logo

TODO

• Bootstrapping
• Printing to the screen
• Reading from the keyboard
• Setting up the Global Descriptor Table
• Print Multiboot Information on startup
• Interrupt Handling
• Physical Memory
• Virtual Memory
• ATA Driver
• FAT12
• VFS