bootloader

An experimental x86 bootloader written in Rust and inline assembly.

Written for the second edition of the Writing an OS in Rust series.

Design

TODO

Build and Run

You need a nightly Rust compiler and cargo xbuild.

Then you can run the builder executable with your kernel as argument:

cd builder
cargo run -- --kernel path/to/your/kernel/elf/file

This will output a file named bootimage.bin in the ../target/x86_64-bootloader/release folder.

You can run this file using QEMU:

qemu-system-x86_64 -drive format=raw,file=target/x86_64-bootloader/release/bootimage.bin

Or burn it to an USB drive:

dd if=target/x86_64-blog_os/debug/bootimage-blog_os.bin of=/dev/sdX && sync

Where sdX is the device name of your USB stick. Be careful to choose the correct device name, because everything on that device is overwritten.

Features

The bootloader crate can be configured through some cargo features:

• vga_320x200: This feature switches the VGA hardware to mode 0x13, a graphics mode with resolution 320x200 and 256 colors per pixel. The framebuffer is linear and lives at address 0xa0000.