CubeBox OS

Free, open-source experimental operating system.

Why am i doing it?

Well, there is no such a good reason i am doing this, but it is probably just for fun and for education. Anyways, if you find this project good, i will be glad for everyone using it.

What are this project goals?

• The main goal of this project is to create an operating system compatible with both modern and old (crappy) computers.
  To statisfy this goal, it is required to implement hardware drivers for both modern and old hardware devices. This includes (for example) floppy disk controller, old displays, SSDs, USB 3.0., NVMe disks, etc.
• It is also needed to create a system that is as lightweight as possible. Operating system can not be too hungry for resources, as old computers does not have as many resources, as modern computers have.
• Another goal is to create an environment simliar to linux, but not re-create it too much.
• Also, goal of this project is to create it a bit nostalgic but also usable at once.

Why should i use it?

Althrough project is not complete, i believe in that, one day you will find it usefull. As i said, the main goal of this project is to make an operating system that runs (and fits) on every machine - both modern and old "crappy" computers.

Also, if you are going to use it for educational purposes, the doors are always open for you :).

CubeBox OS community discord?

Yes, CubeBox OS has its discord community server. Link is here

Build dependency list

These are dependencies required to build:

• GNU Cross Compiler and GNU assebler for i686 - required to build the most of the parts of the code. Probably a part of binutils. The specific binaries name are i686-elf-gcc i686-elf-as.
• Netwide assembler AKA NASM - required to assemble system parts that were not able to be built using i686-elf-as.
• Grand Unified Bootloader AKA GNU GRUB - required to make an ISO file containing the GNU GRUB bootloader. The required binaries are grub-file and grub-mkrescue.
• xorriso and mtools - packages required with GNU GRUB to make bootable ISO image.
• ImageMagick - for image files conversion.

This is how I installed everything on my computer running Debian-based distribution (Ubuntu):

$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt install nasm grub-common xorriso mtools build-essential git bison flex libgmp3-dev libmpc-dev libmpfr-dev texinfo libisl-dev && export PREFIX="$HOME/opt/cross" && export TARGET=i686-elf && export PATH="$PREFIX/bin:$PATH" && mkdir $HOME/opt/cross/bin && mkdir $HOME/src && cd $HOME/src && git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/bminor/binutils-gdb.git ~/src/binutils-gdb && mkdir ~/src/binutils-gdb/build-binutils && cd ~/src/binutils-gdb/build-binutils && ../configure --target=$TARGET --prefix="$PREFIX" --with-sysroot --disable-nls --disable-werror && make && make install
$ which -- $TARGET-as || echo $TARGET-as is not in the PATH
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/gcc-mirror/gcc.git ~/src/gcc && mkdir ~/src/gcc/build-gcc && cd ~/src/gcc/build-gcc && ../configure --target=$TARGET --prefix="$PREFIX" --disable-nls --enable-languages=c,c++ --without-headers && make all-gcc && make all-target-libgcc && make install-gcc && make install-target-libgcc
$ which -- $TARGET-gcc || echo $TARGET-gcc is not in the PATH

If you are not running on Linux, you are probably going to go through the hell, especially for Windows users. Wish you good luck.

NOTE: Installation may take a large amount of time, even a coupule of hours, depending on your machine and internet connection. Please, be patient.

Build from sources

After installing build dependencies, you are finally ready to build sources.
First, you need to get source code. You can do this using git by cloning a Git repository. Alternatively, if something goes wrong, you can download whole branch as a ZIP archive

$ git clone https://github.com/COOKIE-1816/cubebox-os.git
$ cd ./cubebox-os

After having Git repo clonned, run ./build.sh script. Now, just sit and wait.

vhajsman@main:~/Desktop/cubebox$ sh ./build.sh 
------------------------------------------------
CubeBox Build script
 -   CubeBox version: v0.0.1.0a
 -   Phase:           alpha
 -   ISO Location:    build/cubebox-v0.0.1.0a-alpha.iso
------------------------------------------------
STEP 1: Assemble assembly files
STEP 2: Compile sources
STEP 3: Link object files
STEP 4: Verify multiboot
MB Confirmed.
STEP 5: Create bootable ISO image
xorriso 1.5.4 : RockRidge filesystem manipulator, libburnia project.

Drive current: -outdev 'stdio:build/cubebox-v0.0.1.0a-alpha.iso'
Media current: stdio file, overwriteable
Media status : is blank
Media summary: 0 sessions, 0 data blocks, 0 data,  178g free
Added to ISO image: directory '/'='/tmp/grub.wh9806'
xorriso : UPDATE :     579 files added in 1 seconds
Added to ISO image: directory '/'='/home/vhajsman/Desktop/cubebox/build/iso'
xorriso : UPDATE :     584 files added in 1 seconds
xorriso : NOTE : Copying to System Area: 512 bytes from file '/usr/lib/grub/i386-pc/boot_hybrid.img'
xorriso : UPDATE : Thank you for being patient. Working since 0 seconds.
ISO image produced: 5739 sectors
Written to medium : 5739 sectors at LBA 0
Writing to 'stdio:build/cubebox-v0.0.1.0a-alpha.iso' completed successfully.

Where does the object files, binaries and ISO file go after build?

ISO File(s)   ->  ./build/              (*.iso)
ISO Contents  ->  ./build/iso           
Binary files  ->  ./build/bin           (*.bin)
Object files  ->  ./build/obj           (*.<source-extension>.o)