HydraOS

A custom x86 operating system built from scratch in C++ and Assembly.

🎯 Current Status

HydraOS is a functional operating system with interactive shell, multitasking, and memory management!

✅ Completed Features

• Bootloader Integration: GRUB-based bootloader with multiboot support
• Global Descriptor Table (GDT): Memory segmentation and protection
• Interrupt Handling: Full interrupt descriptor table (IDT) with hardware and software interrupt support
• VGA Graphics Driver: Text mode with 16 colors, cursor control, scrolling
• Memory Management: 10MB heap allocator with malloc/free and coalescing
• Timer (PIT) Driver: 100 Hz programmable interval timer for timing operations
• Multitasking: Cooperative task scheduler with round-robin scheduling
• Interactive Shell: Command-line interface with 7 built-in commands
• Hardware Drivers:
  • Full keyboard driver with complete scancode mapping
  • PS/2 Mouse driver with cursor movement
  • Port I/O abstraction layer
• Driver Framework: Extensible driver manager for hardware initialization

🏗️ Architecture

Project Structure

hydraOS/
├── include/           # Header files
│   ├── common/       # Common types and utilities
│   ├── drivers/      # Driver interfaces
│   └── hardwarecommunication/  # Hardware abstraction
├── src/              # Implementation files
│   ├── drivers/      # Driver implementations
│   └── hardwarecommunication/  # Hardware communication
├── Makefile          # Build configuration
└── linker.ld         # Linker script

🚀 Building & Running

Prerequisites

• GCC cross-compiler (i686-elf-gcc) or 32-bit GCC
• GNU Make
• NASM or GNU Assembler
• GRUB tools (grub-mkrescue)
• QEMU or VirtualBox for testing

Build Commands

# Build the kernel
make

# Create bootable ISO
make mykernel.iso

# Run in QEMU
make run

# Clean build artifacts
make clean

�️ Shell Commands

The interactive shell supports the following commands:

• help - Show all available commands
• clear / cls - Clear the screen
• echo [text] - Print text to the screen
• uptime - Show system uptime
• about - Display HydraOS information
• meminfo - Show memory configuration
• uname - Display system information

📋 Development Roadmap

✅ Completed

1. ✅ VGA Graphics Driver - Enhanced text mode with colors and cursor control
2. ✅ Memory Management - Heap allocator with malloc/free
3. ✅ Timer (PIT) Driver - Time-based operations and scheduling
4. ✅ Multitasking - Cooperative task scheduler with round-robin scheduling
5. ✅ Shell/CLI - Interactive command-line interface

🎯 Next Priority

6. System Calls Interface - Kernel-user space communication (interrupt 0x80)
7. ATA/IDE Hard Disk Driver - Persistent storage access
8. File System - Basic file operations (FAT or custom)

Future Enhancements

• Network stack (Ethernet, TCP/IP)
• Virtual memory management (paging)
• User-space applications
• GUI framework
• More device drivers (USB, Sound, etc.)

🔧 Development Workflow

Branches

• main: Stable releases only
• develop: Active development branch (use this for features)
• feature/*: Feature-specific branches

Contributing

1. Create feature branch from develop
2. Implement and test your feature
3. Submit pull request to develop

📖 Learning Resources

This OS is built following low-level systems programming concepts:

• x86 Architecture and Assembly
• Protected Mode and Memory Segmentation
• Interrupt Handling (PIC, IDT)
• Hardware I/O Programming
• Driver Development

📝 License

See LICENSE file for details.

🎓 Credits

Developed as a learning project to understand operating system internals and low-level programming.

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Current Branch: develop
Last Updated: November 22, 2025