Try it in QEMU
On the Mac, at your own prompt in two minutes – no USB stick needed.
1. Get the tools
brew install llvm lld qemu nasm mtools xorriso coreutils
What all of that is and what it's for: Toolchain.
2. Start
make nullos-tools # once: build the tools for NULLos
make run
Builds bootloader and kernel and starts NULLos in QEMU. A window opens, and the serial console
shows up right in the terminal. Type h for help.
| Command | What happens |
|---|
make nullos-tools | build all tools for NULLos (they end up in /bin) |
make os | just build (boot partition in the build folder) |
make run | build + start in QEMU |
make check | boot without a window, check the prompt automatically |
make host | build all tools for the Mac |
make test | run all tool tests |
make -C cc | build our own C compiler |
3. What you'll see
The kernel reports in with version, timer, free memory and disk – and starts the shell
s right away. Give it a try:
l /bin what's all there
pr hallo | tr a-z A-Z pipes work
ca 2^100 math with long numbers
e notiz.txt the editor
sys who am I, what have I got
h cp help – old names work too
py -c 'print(6*7)' Python
The keyboard has a German layout with umlauts; kb load us switches to US, kb load de-mac to a Mac keyboard (Option key like AltGr).
exit takes you to the small built-in kernel shell (prompt >) with h,
ls, cat, ps, up, mem, rb (reboot),
off (power off) and a few more.
To get the tools included, run make nullos-tools once beforehand (builds them against the
NULLos libc, takes a few minutes). Without it, NULLos boots straight into the kernel shell. After make clean the folder build is missing, and make nullos-tools then builds nothing – run mkdir -p build first.
Connect over SSH
Start NULLos without a window and get in from the Mac with ssh, step by step and checked in QEMU:
Try NULLos in QEMU and connect over SSH (user docs).
On real hardware
USB stick, hard disk, Raspberry Pi, ESP32: see Installing. coming soon