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SerenityOS – a graphical Unix-like OS for x86, with 90s aesthetics

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Re: SerenityOS – a graphical Unix-like OS for x86, with 90s aesthetics

#21

Post by newsbinator »

tbrock wrote: post #19
akling wrote: post #13

Hello friends, author here! Fun to see my project on HN again. If you would like to see the system in action, I did a demo video in March[1] and one in April[2]. I’m happy to answer any questions you might have about the system. I’m not an expert on operating systems, but I can be pretty productive :) [1] https://youtu.be/hE52D-zbX3g [2] https://youtu.be/RBr5If8GrM4

I honestly cannot believe the massive scope of this project, it’s astonishing. What an accomplishment! You singlehandedly created something that took many programmers many decades to build.

10% of this is knowing in advance what UI/UX paradigms you're matching/mimicking.

The original developers had to come up with the concept of, say, a taskbar from scratch.

They understood it has to run separately from other parts of the OS in case of crashes, it should support icons that are references to the same icons that windows have, etc.

But they were also limited by the resources of their day, and had to get clever about resource allocation. That's extremely time-consuming.

But that said, 90% of this project is simply a very good creator, being incredibly productive.

The mythical 100x programmer isn't always a myth.

I'm in awe.

Re: SerenityOS – a graphical Unix-like OS for x86, with 90s aesthetics

#22

Post by akling »

Aeolun wrote: post #20
akling wrote: post #13

Hello friends, author here! Fun to see my project on HN again. If you would like to see the system in action, I did a demo video in March[1] and one in April[2]. I’m happy to answer any questions you might have about the system. I’m not an expert on operating systems, but I can be pretty productive :) [1] https://youtu.be/hE52D-zbX3g [2] https://youtu.be/RBr5If8GrM4

Whenever I see these kinds of videos, I’m struck by how much time and work it must have taken to be able to announce a new slider component. From the state a month ago, it’s very reasonable. From scratch however... How do you even start building an OS?

You can actually see how much work the slider took, because I recorded the process :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMRJClRrGps

I don't know if any two operating systems started out the same.. Serenity came into this world because I found myself with a lot of free time and in need of a programming project.

The first three components I wrote were an ELF parser, an Ext2 filesystem dumper, and a GUI library (on top of SDL.) They all ran independently on my Linux box. Once they worked well enough, I glued it all together with a simple x86 kernel and just kept going.

Re: SerenityOS – a graphical Unix-like OS for x86, with 90s aesthetics

#23

Post by tyingq »

Aeolun wrote: post #20
akling wrote: post #13

Hello friends, author here! Fun to see my project on HN again. If you would like to see the system in action, I did a demo video in March[1] and one in April[2]. I’m happy to answer any questions you might have about the system. I’m not an expert on operating systems, but I can be pretty productive :) [1] https://youtu.be/hE52D-zbX3g [2] https://youtu.be/RBr5If8GrM4

Whenever I see these kinds of videos, I’m struck by how much time and work it must have taken to be able to announce a new slider component. From the state a month ago, it’s very reasonable. From scratch however... How do you even start building an OS?

"How do you even start building an OS?"

Probably not the answer you wanted, but I assume from a poc/toy bootloader. I wasn't disciplined enough to go further, but I did play around getting a toy OS working, and stopped a little bit past that part.

This effort, from a one man show, is amazing.

Re: SerenityOS – a graphical Unix-like OS for x86, with 90s aesthetics

#24

Post by humanrebar »

Koshkin wrote: post #16

Also, a good example of a clean modern C++ code.

Mostly. A good portion of the AK subdirectory should be replaced with standard and/or boost functionality, though:

https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/tree/9153666e72effdf5...

Re: SerenityOS – a graphical Unix-like OS for x86, with 90s aesthetics

#25

Post by reaperducer »

I think this is an impressive achievement, and certainly something I could never do. But I'm a little disappointed in the state of desktop operating systems these days. I don't see any innovation. Every OS is just splashing chrome on the same WIMP paradigm that's been available to consumers for 35 years.

Maybe I'm looking for the equivalent of a flying car, but I wish someone would come up with an OS, or even just an OS feature that makes people say "wow!"

Is there a college lab or a research department or some other place where people are trying really different things?

Re: SerenityOS – a graphical Unix-like OS for x86, with 90s aesthetics

#26

Post by ianai »

davidw wrote: post #9
Sendotsh wrote: post #6

I love the idea of a modern OS with the 90s function-over-form aesthetic. There’s immense beauty for me in function, and the 90s was without a doubt the peak of OS design.

> and the 90s was without a doubt the peak of OS design. reply Also, and surely not at all correlated with my youth, it was the peak of good music.

90s kid, you’re both wrong. OSX was a forreal big deal. Would google or Apple have built smartphones on FOSS OSes without an OSX? Music has definitely blown up and gone full post modern though. You can probably get an endless stream of whatever sound floats your boat for 10$/ month. Or free.

Re: SerenityOS – a graphical Unix-like OS for x86, with 90s aesthetics

#27

Post by akling »

newsbinator wrote: post #21
tbrock wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly cannot believe the massive scope of this project, it’s astonishing. What an accomplishment! You singlehandedly created something that took many programmers many decades to build.

10% of this is knowing in advance what UI/UX paradigms you're matching/mimicking. The original developers had to come up with the concept of, say, a taskbar from scratch. They understood it has to run separately from other parts of the OS in case of crashes, it should support icons that are references to the same icons that windows have, etc. But they were also limited by the resources of their day, and had to get cl…

You are absolutely right about the benefits of mimicking existing UI paradigms. It saves so much time already knowing basically how I want things to look and work. And not having to worry as much about resources as people did in the past is a huge load off. (Although I do all my development with 128MB of RAM or less, because I enjoy that sort of challenge..)

Serenity is an unapologetic remix/mash-up of all the things I like in software. Not just visually, but also code-wise. If you look into the sources, you'll find C++ heavily inspired by Qt and WebKit.

Re: SerenityOS – a graphical Unix-like OS for x86, with 90s aesthetics

#28

Post by brodsky »

reaperducer wrote: post #25

I think this is an impressive achievement, and certainly something I could never do. But I'm a little disappointed in the state of desktop operating systems these days. I don't see any innovation. Every OS is just splashing chrome on the same WIMP paradigm that's been available to consumers for 35 years. Maybe I'm looking for the equivalent of a flying car, but I wish someone would come up with an OS, or even just an…

I know what you mean. but I'm also not sure what innovation can be expected from something as utilitarian as an OS. Do you have any ideas of what you'd want to see?

Re: SerenityOS – a graphical Unix-like OS for x86, with 90s aesthetics

#29

Post by forgotmypw3 »

ianai wrote: post #26
davidw wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and the 90s was without a doubt the peak of OS design. reply Also, and surely not at all correlated with my youth, it was the peak of good music.

90s kid, you’re both wrong. OSX was a forreal big deal. Would google or Apple have built smartphones on FOSS OSes without an OSX? Music has definitely blown up and gone full post modern though. You can probably get an endless stream of whatever sound floats your boat for 10$/ month. Or free.

OS X Server 1.0, which I agree is an amazing OS, came out in 1999.

It was based on NeXTSTEP, first released in 1988 and developed up to 2000.

Re: SerenityOS – a graphical Unix-like OS for x86, with 90s aesthetics

#30

Post by nonbirithm »

I love the aesthetic of 90's/00's desktop interfaces and use bb4win and openbox to recreate the look. It's too bad everything is so much flatter and antialiased in most recent operating systems. I purposely got myself a lower resolution monitor (in 4:3) so the bitmapped fonts I use are easier to see. I wonder if there's a WM that can mimic the look of old versions of GNOME/KDE more closely.
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