edugeek OS

[stratisphere]

Sorry guys, this isn’t a post about a new kick-ass OS especially for us.

I had a thought last night. If we could create our own OS, what would it be like?

Replies on the back of a post please. If you want, it might help for readability to categorise anything as well. E.g.

Security
Be able to authenticate with a wide range of sources

UI
Must look pretty... but possible for new users (or Windows users) to adapt to very quickly.

I think it'll be fun to see where this goes! (Oh, I’m not actually creating an OS and trying to do sneaky research... I was just bored last night!)

[powdarrmonkey]

Is this a proposal or a dream? It's already been discussed elsewhere (I'm too lazy to dig the thread out).

[stratisphere]

Well, I don’t have the skills to do such a thing let alone the time to dedicate to a mammoth project like this. So at the moment, I guess it's a dream.

I did have a look around but couldn’t find anything?

[DSapseid]

was talked about here EduGeek Linux

[Hightower]

If it was an OS that I had to role out to staff then it would need to be as close to Windows as possible in appearance (not bothered about pupils as they would be able to pick a new system up almost instantly). It would also need to support similar features to Windows i.e. being able to allocate packages to a group of machines from the server.

[stratisphere]

was talked about here EduGeek Linux

Fair enough!

Let this thread die in peace!

[Friez]

To write an OS from scratch you have an immense amount of work on your hands.

You need a thorough understanding of C/C++/Assembler and how hardware works and you will need to cover all kinds of things including:

The Kernel of the OS.
Writing a bootloader and all the fun that goes into dropping it into the bootsector.
Writing support for a massive range of hardware devices and enable them to work with your OS (Drivers e.t.c. for anything you can possibly throw in the box, literally millions of devices).
Write a filesystem, or make your OS work with existing filesystems (ex2,fat,ntfs e.t.c.).
Handle network operations to support existing protocols (TCP/IP, UDP e.t.c).

This, and thousands more things are required to DESIGN an OS. You need to account for absolutely EVERYTHING before you start even coding anything. Once you have a solid idea on what to do, you need people to make it happen. Writing anything other than a crude simple limited OS for specific hardware will require a vast amount of time and work.

Even then, with all that designing and coding you will need to test everything thoroughly and procede.

I've not even touched the surface of the water with things an OS needs. Security, look + feel, customisability, e.t.c. An OS is an immense piece of software, this is why people work on them collaboratively and each work on a small chunk of it.

[stratisphere]

Sorry maybe my first post wasnt very clear. I have no intention of creating an OS. I simply had a random thought last night: "If techies had choice over what was in an educational OS... what would it be like"

At most, this would have been a wish list. But as DSapseid mentioned... it's been discussed before.

I think it'll be fun to see where this goes! (Oh, I’m not actually creating an OS and trying to do sneaky research... I was just bored last night!)

[mattx]

Like OS/2 - that was a 'proper' OS.....

[CyberNerd]

You need a thorough understanding of C/C++/Assembler and how hardware works and you will need to cover all kinds of things including:

The Kernel of the OS.
Writing a bootloader and all the fun that goes into dropping it into the bootsector.
Writing support for a massive range of hardware devices and enable them to work with your OS (Drivers e.t.c. for anything you can possibly throw in the box, literally millions of devices).
Write a filesystem, or make your OS work with existing filesystems (ex2,fat,ntfs e.t.c.).
Handle network operations to support existing protocols (TCP/IP, UDP e.t.c).

you've not heard about Open Source then....

[powdarrmonkey]

There is also a thread about Windows 7 wishlists (again, I CBA to find the thread).

[Friez]

you've not heard about Open Source then....

You've not heard about reading then?

this is why people work on them collaboratively and each work on a small chunk of it

Sure, Linux is one of our more favourite Open Source OS's out there. But in the context of my original post:

Open source operating systems are written by a great deal of talented designers, programmers and system architects. They are carefully designed in order to tackle the problems as I outlined above, and each person does their bit to just a small section of the overall product.

My post was discussing the sheer scale of things that need to be considered to actually make an operating system, commercial or otherwise. It is no trivial thing to 'knock up' an OS, but I never said it was impossible. If it was impossible, we would not even be chatting on here today :P

[stratisphere]

Ok, this is turning into something from the SA forums.

My original post was a what if. Simple as that.

Please keep on topic (which is what would you like in an OS if one was being designed for edugeek people) if this is going to continue.

[dhicks]

If we could create our own OS, what would it be like?

It would be like a web browser. No desktop, start menu, or anything else, just a tabbed web browser with up-to-date plugins (PDF, Java, Flash, etc). Then our day-to-day job would just involve making sure computers could switch on and boot this OS, everything else would be based on web servers.

--
David Hicks

[kearton]

OS/2..... Half an Operating System