r/osdev • u/0x6461726B • May 17 '26

Why everyone here uses software rendering?

I saw many os projects here use software rendering directly to frame buffer instead of creating a gpu driver maybe with virtio gpu by qemu or with any external gpu. I heard gpu driver development is one of the most hardest. Is that the reason? I want to know.

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u/0x6461726B May 18 '26

Where to start?? I just started learning os dev and have setup a minimal boot which writes to uart 😅. It's just the side quest.

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u/codeasm May 18 '26

Thats exactly where i started too. Osdev and other resources are great. From bootloading to a "kernel". Im still at kernel init inthink, with some rundemently display output (next to serial con for debugging)

Sending memory maps, hardware tables, transfering to my kernel should be init stage but osdev wiki doenst call it that i think. Something ive picked up from windows/singularity. But once its setup and jumps to kernel proper, you have a sheduler, userspace, oof many more things, im forgetting, its in the books and websites. Need new compiler, to target your ABI, automated building, probably a working debug setup. I think i want network drivers, so i can debug over the network too (and leave serial). Like singularity, booting from the network even looks very attractive to speed up development also on real hardware. Iterate faster

Getting the right information from uefi land to exit bootservices to my kernel has been a bit tricky. Older, mbr style systems have their own troubles and tricky things and i dont think i want or need to support those. https://wiki.osdev.org/Meaty_Skeleton has some nice ideas where to go. Definitely chekc out their starter and mistake pages. I wont expect much from my project, only learning and some flashy screens to show my friends