Organization & build flow

This project is currently divided into two sub-projects (interactive - links are clickable):

• magnetite_os/boot - (WIP) custom legacy bootloader written in assembler and Rust
• magnetite_os/kern - (planned) kernel written in Rust
• magnetite_os/common - (WIP) common definitions
• magnetite_os/DECISIONS - decisions record

Toolchain requirements

This project primarily uses

• make to keep track of progress, resolve dependencies, and orchestrate component builds,
• cargo (from the Rust nightly toolchain) to compile Rust sources
• nasm to compile x86 assembly sources,
• ld (from binutils) to link binaries with custom layouts,
• mkfs.fat and mcopy (from dosfstools and mtools) to generate FAT16 disk images containing system files, and
• bochs to run the project in a virtual machine

Testing

To build and debug the bootloader, simply run

make debug_boot

Rationale

This project explores how, and whether, the essential components of an operating system can be developed on top of a pure assembler + Rust development stack (as opposed to the traditional assembler + C/C++ stack).

In short, this project is for educational and self-growth purposes.

Key concepts & terminology

Specific concepts and terminology are more appropriately explained in their respective contexts:

• boot-related breakdown in magnetite_os/boot/README.md, and
• kernel-related breakdown in magnetite_os/kern/README.md

Resources

This project, like many other hobby OS development projects, would be next to impossible without reading into relevant literature.

A good place to look up basics and details would be the OSDev wiki page.

Licensing

This project is licensed under the MIT license. A copy can be found in the project root folder.

Acknowledgements

This project uses portions derived from the Rust standard library, originally licensed under the MIT license.