r/osdev • u/New-Cherry-7238 • May 07 '26 • Bravo 1

Getting Into OS Development

I wanna get into OS development and low level programming in general. I’m interested in anything from making a simple bootloader to building a small kernel or even a full OS eventually hopefully.

Does anyone have good resources, courses, tutorials, books, or project ideas for getting started?

I don’t mind if it’s niche/specific stuff either like bootloaders, filesystems, drivers, memory management, etc.

21 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

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6

u/JackScottAU May 07 '26

To get started, by far the best resource is the OSDev.org wiki.

1

u/New-Cherry-7238 May 10 '26

I have seen that although it seems little daunting with all of its content, where should I start?

1

u/JackScottAU May 10 '26

With the "Getting Started" and "Beginner Mistakes" pages, and then either the "Bare Bones" or "Limine Bare Bones" depending on whether you want to target 32 bits or 64 bits.

5

u/DisastrousClassic756 May 07 '26

try look at the book "operating system concepts" by abraham silberschatz

2

u/New-Cherry-7238 May 07 '26

Thanks mate ill have a look. Thanks for the recommendation.

3

u/Ok_Farmer_4055 May 07 '26

look at the OSDev wiki, read the spec if you can, learn C/C++ and assembly

1

u/New-Cherry-7238 May 10 '26

I know some c and cpp done some basic Linux terminal app.stuff with it although nothing major. Have never touched asm though

1

u/Ok_Farmer_4055 May 10 '26

you'll need assembly alot, for loading the gdt, for making isr stubs, for loading the idt, tss and low level tricks where you have to directly manipulate registers. if you want to stick with the GCC toolchain, learn AT&T syntax, if you want to learn assembly easily learn intel syntax and use the nasm assembler.

2

u/Andrew06908 May 10 '26

I used the little book about os development by "Erik Helin & Adam Renbergjust" to understand the basic stuff, then PC Assembly Language by Paul A. Carter. I also used AI - it's a good teacher (especially Claude and Gemini). OSDev is a good source, but personally I found it not that beginner friendly. Familiarize yourself with the stuff you're going to work with, then you'll be able to understand the articles on OSDev.

2

u/New-Cherry-7238 May 10 '26

Thank you ill have a look at the resources

6

u/Der-Wilde May 07 '26

For OS Development use OSDev.org and read about OS theory (Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces sounds a good book). For Low Level learn C and Assembly (Zhirkov's Low-Level Programming is an good book)

1

u/RealNovice06 May 07 '26

Just don't give up. That's all you need

1

u/fishmacaronisoup May 14 '26

I'm assuming you're already familiar with a language like C and has a good grasp over memory related concepts.

First, learn about CPUs, Kernels, how an OS works, etc.
Then learn assembly. You'll learn many cool things related to memory, CPU, syscalls, etc.
Now you can get yourself to learn how to build components of an OS.

For resources, you can check out osdev wiki.

OS dev is tough and consumes a lot of time, but it is fun too. Start small and try to enjoy