Making My Own OS

17 November 2025   258 words   ~2 mins
#2025 #Updates #OS Dev #C/C++ #Penny-DOS

Table of Contents

Hello, World.

Hey guys, Penne here! Today I’m going through the basics of making my own DOS! Without further ado, lets begin.

I do want to not if you are not me and you happen to be reading this this more like notes for me lmao.

post 1 of many posts

Requirements.

To make a DOS based OS you will need quite a bit of stuff. Let me make that list below.

  1. A Computer, To code on. (REQUIRED.)
    • preferably running Linux, windows WSL/macOS is okay too, however this project is made from Debian 13 Trixie.
    • optionally another computer to use as the test machine. (optional.)
    • USB stick (optional.)
  2. A virtual machine, if you dont want to use actual hardware. (REQUIRED.)
    • The VM needs at minimum 512 MB of ram, & input/output abilities. I am using QEMU but you do not need that one, use what you are comfortable with.
  3. Knowledge in C (REQUIRED.)
  4. Knowledge in Assembly + NASM (REQUIRED.)
  5. GCC knowlege (REQUIRED.)
  6. a terminal. (REQUIRED.)
    • I use Konsole, however you can use any terminal.
  7. Basic terminal knowledge. (REQUIRED.)
  8. Git(Hub) knowledge (optional.)
    • Only if you want to publish to github.

Notes for author.

Commands Masterlist.

Some basic commands you will need to run: (updated when i feel like updating it lol.)

# BASH
~$ cd Documents
/Documents$ git clone https://github.com/penne-not-pasta/penny-dos.git # clones to current working directory.
/Documents$ cd penny-dos
# commands to run in Penny-DOS directory.
/Documents/penny-dos$ make all # builds the project.
/Documents/penny-dos$ make clean # cleans up the build.
/Documents/penny-dos$ qemu-system-x86_64 -hda ./src/bin/boot.bin # runs in QEMU.
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