Hyperion OS

General discussion for topics related to the FreeBASIC project or its community.
Zamaster
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Hyperion OS

Post by Zamaster »

or at least thats what I WANT to call it. My friend Josh and I are creating a simple OS for our graduation project, and its gonna be pretty cool! We are making a list of the pros n' cons o' windows and mac. I wanna know what you guys think, in other words, throw out complaints about any current operating systems.

And before anyone tells me "no you cant do it", we have 2 years. Thats plenty of time. So yeah, waddya think?
Deleter
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Post by Deleter »

woot, rant time!

What you should NOT include:

Unnecessary system bloat, which is basically anything that tries to help the user out without giving the user the option to say "fck off".

Lack of GUI functionality. I can see why a GUI should be intuitive, I don't see why this should make it impossible to change. Sure, I can download stuff that changes this, but it ought to be built right into the operating system rather than a surface app.


Inability to control what is going on, or at least know it. I like how windows 2000 and xp give me the ability to see what processes are running, I don't like a) that some simply won't close WITHOUT telling me why (if its core critical, then fcking tell me that) and b) that there is a generic name so processes don't have to have a name.

Un-Intuitiveness of modification and settings changing. windows has its different options in about every place imaginable. Why should I have to dig to find out how to change this or that, I shouldn't! ALL config ought to be in the same place, and organized logically, its not that much to ask for...

System cloggage and decay over time. Design your OS so that on day #1019238, my computer runs just the same as day #1. I hate that a program that consists simply of electronic commands finds a way to decay and become slower over time. I do not enjoy the yearly reformat, if I could do away with this, I would.

Slow-startup. Windows xp booted up in like 20 seconds. Once. Then it added a bunch of crap so now its like a minute. And this is very very fast for an un-tided boot time. Sure, I could go and whip XP into shape, but I shouldn't have to, and even if I do, it shouldn't be the conundrum that it is.

If you can't tell, I like control, and I like functionality. Not just raw control, but simple, methodical, and intuitive control. It should be just as easy to leave everything as it is and use the OS as it would be to customize everything and then use that. If you want a n00bie feature, then put a huge button called N00B-PROTECTION, they press it and now they can't screw themselves. But it should be a simple process, not a multi-tiered boggle of searching and guesswork that leaves you lost. Sure, I CAN navigate all that BS and master my system, but why should I? If I want to be master, it should be clear what that means, and easy to do.


Things I like that you really should put in:

Plug-and-Play. This is a great feature, if my mouse stops working, I can pull it out and put it in or put in a new one like that, no stupid rebooting.

Install-and-Play. I never liked having to reboot to run an app, installing and running stuff non-stop is great.

A GUI. Command prompts are fun and all, but nothing beats a GUI, except a better GUI. ;)

Support for DirectX 10. Haha, just kidding ;)

Three words to describe what would be the perfect OS:
Simple, Functional, and Intuitive.

Good day, and jeeze what a rant :)
Zamaster
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Post by Zamaster »

Thats along the lines of what we're going for, an OS aimed at devlopers.
1000101
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Post by 1000101 »

First off, what are your constraints and resources? Do you have to develop from scratch? Do you have a common library set you can use already? How big is your team?

Even a small OS for specific hardware to preform a small set of functions is *very* time consuming to write.
Zamaster
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Post by Zamaster »

Well cause its a graduation project, ALL from scratch, no libraries unless we create them. My team is of two people, Myself and my friend Josh. Our resources, we each have a test bed computer to work with using Intel 80x86 hardware. All we need to do is come up with a simple GUI somehow. Like windows 3.1 except much worse. Josh is really interested in OS developement so if we ever finish the el crap'o version, wed move onto something maybe more professional. But for now, VERY simple. All it needs to do is run applications, have a file system, have a GUI and allow multiple processes at once. I know this is gonna be tough but I know we can pull it off. Does this help?
1000101
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Post by 1000101 »

My questions were more to help you then me :P Seriously, sometimes you don't ask yourself some important questions like these and these questions force you to be aware of your constraints.
Zamaster
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Post by Zamaster »

true dat, and to be honest, I never really thought about those till you brought it up. Thanks!
blahboybang
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Post by blahboybang »

Please, SCREW the registry. Windows becomes slow because the ENTIRE registry is loaded at boot. Here's an Idea:

SLOTS


There is a slotfile. Whenever something is installed, a new slot is made, which holds the "registry" information. The slot is allocated to the program, and when the program is launched, the slot address is read and applied to the program.

Simple enough?
jevans4949
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Post by jevans4949 »

Firstly, don't get sued over that name! See http://www.hyperion.com/. They got more bucks than you!

How about the ability to run, say, a database server in background on a desktop machine?

If you are doing networking, some way to control the network from the desktop?
Zamaster
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Post by Zamaster »

wait, if its freeware could I STILL get sued by that place?
jevans4949
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Post by jevans4949 »

Well, if you were a poor student they might not bother sueing, but they would probably give you a hard time.
Deleter
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Post by Deleter »

Zamaster wrote:wait, if its freeware could I STILL get sued by that place?
of course? Just because you aren't selling it doesn't mean they want something that they consider their's (their name) to be given away freely without any consulting with them...That's their property, and distributing it, with or without charge, is illegal.
1000101
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Post by 1000101 »

ZOMG! Databases? Networking? People, this is a two man team aiming for a two year project! I doubt they have every waking hour to spend on it (nor would they want to). I think a basic boot-loader off of a FAT partition and a simple GUI shell is going to consume the first 12-14 months.
Nexinarus
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Post by Nexinarus »

Yeah that's probably going to take the full 2 years I say. Need to get the os a bootloader that actually works (painful!). Then a kernel, a file system on a hard drive going to read/write that actually works, and possibly use folders, need to get input events handled, graphics or console output going, make the kernel multitasking, and probably the easiest part is the GUI.

I say keep it as simple as possible, and you could pull it off perhaps :P.
Zamaster
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Post by Zamaster »

yeah, we really can only do so much. All we need is a boot loader, a kernel and a simple GUI that can handle multiple threads at once. Its not a major freeware software project, its a high school graduation project.
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