operating systems

download a linux source and piece through it?

oh and i used [google] for "how to make an operating system" and found this.

OS161/SYS161
My OS class used this project, and followed the same assignments as the harvard site. It is a linux only (Needs patch for latest GCC), but some say they
can get it to work in Cygwin.

Not so much a tutorial in any sense, but it is a place to start where you dont have to use any special software or get into assembly to understand some of the concepts of operating systems. Most of the background code is there for you, and you are left to implement schedulers, memory managers, disk managers and thread functions. Look through the sources and see how things are done.

I also sugest that you dive into the linux sources and have a look around as to how they did things.

JumpJumpJump runs a website on OS dev called OSlib. You might also want to check out osdever.net, looks like they have a ton of stuff there.

I've been doing some programming on my own OS and it's really interesting. It's a bit hard before you learn how computers "really" works, ie. interrupts, virtual memory, protected mode etc. I recommend you to first go to OsDever. They have lots of good tutorials there. Then you should check out Mega-Tokyo. Both the forum and the FAQ. Also you should get Intel's x86 manuals if you don't have them already.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, go download bochs. It's an x86 emulator which you can use to test your OS so you don't screw up your development system. It also makes debuggin easier.

MiniX is a small Unix clone that is a fairly common OS for students to write. Best done in a team, but it could be tackled on your own.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minix