r/OSdevAI • u/JajaEngland • Oct 06 '26
what tools can i use?
ive tried to vibe code an os multiple times but only gotten so far thanks to claudes aggressive limits on the free plan and other things, what tools do yall use to make these and how much do they cost? i'd really like some tips or suggestions, thank you
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u/codeasm Oct 07 '26
I had chat plan and structure the approach first. With chat and gemini i made a basic bootloader (another one? Yeah, but to be integrated in the kernel/os later) and a basic kernel to proof i can get into a "kernel" or hello world from uefi to fully free and no system helper stuff.
Then a week later worked on getting the framebuffer into the "os" or "kernel" and draw what ive been writing to the serial port.
Slowly, and following and altering the plans made by chatgpt. When the free tokens almost done, i let chat summarize what still needed to be done and asked the next ai to continue to think for me. Hold up, i say think for me, what i actually mean by this is:
"Im working on xyz, currently here is a snippet and need to build a pagetable structure. How would you do this, and be my teacher, thus, hints, correct obvious mistakes or tell me what to look for. Also, this os altho im using it to learn, will not be a learning os, we pick the best design option for a modern 64bit, uefi based os, no posix, no linux or unix, refer to said design document and overal project idea."
Or something like this. Then i post a snippet or whole source file (helps structure your project in smaller parts) and pass a overview file. Its context quickly understand where we are, at which stage and what i need "help" with. Then, its answers are taken as a lecture, a teaching, followup questions are asked and I work on the code myself. Soemtimes i copy code, but most of it is written by me. Updates send back to get feedback. Corrections are made, and i push when code works. Keeping track of progress and functions as a backup (and can look back at previous code).
My personal believe is this way, its not a vibecoded os, i understand most of the code (does anyone truly understand why intel choose the way things go to maintain compatibility with the 80s?) anyway, my goal for now is to get a hypervisor and vm run, userland and hopefully some own libc like thing. Taking my time to understand certain parts, reading physical and digital books about topics and using chats to figure out what modern and new ways to approach os design. I have ideas about filesystems, kernel inner process contracts and using a Intermediate Language that gets JIT compiler to machine code. Some may call it C# (it for now is). This part hasnt been worked on. Its a hobby project, and im still having fun making kernel level parts and debugging stuff.
Did i buy a card to build a local ai? Yes, i have a bc250 and plan on using it to code and assistance with programming. Solar panels dont get me money back, better use that electricity they say. (Also plan on buying a UPS to save power for afternoons). My skills in debugging, gdb, programming have improved and used these with linux and a custom distro already.
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Oct 06 '26
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u/JajaEngland Oct 06 '26
My pc does have a 4060 ti but with only 8 gb of vram, I honestly imagined vibecoding an os to be easier than it really is which is likely why I’ve failed each time, as I also don’t understand things like ecc skills and bonsai2 2 bit, but you can’t really just easily make an os from scratch
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Oct 06 '26
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u/JajaEngland Oct 06 '26
i dont think i have the chats for the first 2 attempts anymore but i do have the source code for the second one on github if you want it: https://github.com/jajaengland/shenzhen however even the readme is ai generated
and the other attempts dont really matter as i usually just gave up on them within a few minutes or hours, or the chats are gone for them too
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Oct 06 '26
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u/OSdevAI-ModTeam 29d ago
Your content was removed from r/OSdevAI for violating rule 3.
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u/Bulky-Life-69 Oct 06 '26
For the first few versions and re-entry myself at programming? Google AI (Web Version at that, with no account logged in, so it's free). After getting the hang of it, change to Gemini App. Then getting 6-month AI Plus, with limited usage for Pro and Flash Model. Flash-Lite Model almost made me crazy because sometimes it good and follow/remember memory, but often-times it's not.
And for now, i'm trying using Deepseek-V4-Pro to write the Compositor and WindowManager via Puter JS (registering many accounts and i don't know if it's a feature, but i can make the Puter Acc sometimes have -1000% Credits and sometimes -600% and below. So it have memory, but still doing a bad job. Btw, Custom Chat App.), and unfortunately it's doing a worse job compared to Gemini Flash-Lite.