Fancy a go at building your own operating system? A course teaching the basics of building an OS has been released for the $40 Raspberry Pi computer.
The free course instructs users of the credit card sized Linux board how to make a simple OS using assembly language.
Starting with an explanation of what an OS is and a discussion on assembly language, the course progresses to the basics of interacting with the Pi’s hardware.
Lessons include how to enable and manipulate the board’s LEDs and writing drivers to control the Pi’s components. The course builds up to a final lesson teaching how to make a command line interface OS.
The course is meant for people with some programming experience, but is suitable for people unfamiliar with assembly language who don’t mind a challenge.
To create the OS you’ll need YAGARTO Tools and YAGARTO GNU ARM, a Raspberry Pi with an SD card and a PC running Windows, Mac OS or Linux to get everything ready. A list of downloads needed can be found here.
The guide was devised by Alex Chadwick at the University of Cambridge Computer Lab.
