
FlingOS: An educational operating system - vmorgulis
http://www.flingos.co.uk/
======
krat0sprakhar
An operating system written in C#! Interesting -
[http://www.flingos.co.uk/docs/reference/Why-
CSharp/](http://www.flingos.co.uk/docs/reference/Why-CSharp/)

~~~
Zekio
It reminds me of the one Microsoft made, but we can actually play around with
it :)

And this one probably isn't multi-threading everywhere.

EDIT: surprisingly easy to setup in a VM

EDIT 2: I suck at this apparently already made it freeze..

~~~
kaushiks
Microsoft's research OS was called Singularity [1] and the C# compiler (that
compiled to native code) Bartok [2].

[1] [http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/projects/singularity/](http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/projects/singularity/) [2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartok_(compiler)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartok_\(compiler\))

~~~
michel-slm
Singularity was later extended by the joint MS-MSR project Midori, which sadly
was discontinued last year. Apparently some features are being incorporated
into C#.

Joe Duffy is blogging about his experience:
[http://joeduffyblog.com/2015/11/03/blogging-about-
midori/](http://joeduffyblog.com/2015/11/03/blogging-about-midori/)

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empressplay
"Educational operating system" makes me think of an OS that's designed for
delivering educational content, not one that's an example operating system for
learning bare-metal coding.

I wonder if "model" might be a better word to use.

~~~
EdNutting
This is an interesting issue - how people interpet the name seems to come out
50/50 between "OS for learning OS dev" and "OS for educational content". In my
experience, people's backgrounds are the biggest factor affecting which they
think of.

We're reluctant to go with "model" OS or similar because we're not actually
implementing anything like an ideal OS - we don't use optimised algorithms for
example. The idea being that you can learn/teach the OS concept using a simple
implementation (and readable code) and then students/developers can optimise
as an exercise/extension/for a real OS. So it's not a "model" OS but is an
"example" OS to use to teach the key concepts.

Unfortunately, "example" OS leads people to think our OS is practical as a
basis for a real OS, which it isn't and we don't want to give the impression
we're trying to rival Linux/Windows/OSX/etc. No name seems to give a
universally correct and good first impression!

~~~
michel-slm
As someone who has taken an advanced OS class that involves implementing
portions of such an educational / teaching OS, I also perceive "educational"
to mean "for learning OS dev".

The other side of the spectrum for me is "research" and "proof of concept"
OSes though - like House (written in Haskell) or Singularity and Midori.

------
superskierpat
I like these kinds of projects, but have thus far been unlucky with mono
projects on linux.. I might try it out anyways.

~~~
EdNutting
Compile our compiler against XBuild and apparently it works (according to one
Reddit user). Unlikely to work with MonoDevelops default/old compiler.

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vmorgulis
The author was looking for money to help the project a month ago:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/osdev/comments/3upyvq/would_you_sup...](https://www.reddit.com/r/osdev/comments/3upyvq/would_you_support_a_flingos_kickstarter/)

~~~
1971genocide
Even though Ed has a really cool project I am guessing since he does not have
a business model it must be hard for him to work on it :(

Unless he figures out how to convince people who are :

1| C# Developers

2| Interested in OS development

To give him money for his work its going to be a tough sell - sadly.

~~~
EdNutting
You've very much hit the nail on the head. However, though it's hard, it's not
impossible - we've got some magic (read as: not suitable for a public forum)
in the business pipeline that should keep this project alive. If all goes
well, we'll have a lot to shout about in a couple of months time. Until then,
we're still welcoming sponsorship or donations! If nothing else, the project
remains open source for anyone to contribute to. Cheers, Ed

~~~
wrong_variable
I really hope you are successful ! I have been stalking your work for a while
:D

Have you tried talking to local schools ? They seem really good target
audience - with a lot of money actually.

I am also interested OS dev but I had nightmarish experience with C# while
working at BRL.

I too am from UoB ( Eng Maths ) - graduated recently.

Its funny how much CS people are always browsing HN lol

~~~
EdNutting
Thanks! Good to hear. We haven't yet but we're planning to in late 2016. We
are hoping to produce an OS dev kit for A-Level / first-year univeristy
students which we can sell at low cost.

Awesome that you're from UoB! Shame you weren't here last term when I ran the
lectures/workshops. Are you still living in Bristol?

I have to say, I only come on here occasionally and signed up today to be able
to reply to things about FlingOS - new user syndrome is limiting my number of
comments though!

~~~
wrong_variable
That sounds wonderful ! - A dev kit would be really cool - something like the
arduino that students can get their hands dirty with.

I am working for a startup who are involved in the education space, but it's
focused on the chinese market, somehow our sale's team figured out how to make
chinese consumer pay us money to write code lol.

I moved to London.

yeah - hacker news is weird. Do not let the comments hear or on reddit affect
you - you could cure cancer and still be shrugged off.

When I was in Uni I didn't take an modules on OS stuff - too complicated, too
much time - and there aren't many things I do with it once it's done ? So if
you can convince people of the application - something that will capture the
imagination. Something they could do with FlingOS - make a robot, IoT, put on
their car/bike ?

I mean I am having a difficult time thinking of writing a custom OS to solve
some problem I am having.

I really like your youtube videos ! You should invest in a better microphone -
it actually helps !

~~~
EdNutting
Yep but we're looking at the creator CI20 or CI40 boards as our compiler
supports MIPS.

I tend to only listen to the positive stuff from Reddit and the like but that
said, we've not had any notable amount of negative feedback online thus far
which is rather remarkable!

Yeah cool projects are one aspect but we're also pushing the "if you
understand low level, your high level and Web apps will be better and
certainly much more secure"!

Thanks for the feedback about the videos. I have a pro microphone - Blue Yeti.
The issue is actually the recording environment (my thin walled, noisy
neighbours flat in Bristol) which means quality is lost in editing the noise
out. I'm trying to organise I better recording environment for future videos.

Is there a link to the startup you're involved in? Or is it all in a language
a I sadly don't speak? Haha.

~~~
wrong_variable
Reduce the gain on your Blue Yeti - it's actually one of the disadvantages of
the Yeti microphones - they capture a lot of the background noise.

For noise - try the starving artist method - record it under a thick duvet.
The physics behind it is the same as those fancy expensive sound proof rooms.
It actually works ! Many artists with no money use this method.

It does look ridiculous and when you present your audio to a bunch of people
you do not want to reveal that you recorded it under a duvet wearing your
underwear.

I am guessing you are living in a student house lol - I was lucky to live with
working people who valued silence - Find a time - usually 10pm - 12 pm that is
not too late and when things are quite to do your recording. If you can
schedule it like that you should be fine.

I agree, understanding C helps me everyday - even though I used to complain
about it in first year.

Its all in Javascript, so its something that you have experience with.

Have you thought about creating your board for the chinese market ? - in
chinese for example lot of demand for educational content there ( Lots of
demand for everything actually )

~~~
EdNutting
Haha it's always at the lowest! My flat really is that noisy. And the video
I'm (slowly) uploading now is even worse because I don't have my mic so it's
laptop recorded - wanted to post something to "ride the New Year wave" so to
speak!

I have sound proof foam etc, it just doesn't help. Many things researched and
tried (with much laughter from my flat mates on the occasion they saw me doing
odd things) to no avail. A lot of it was recorded when heavy building work was
going on just outside my window (basically all of the summer I was working the
building works were going on but University buildings were even worse). If
you'd heard the original audio, I think you'd be impressed by how clean I
actually managed to get it in then end.

Targeting the Chinese is an interesting idea. The problem would be finding
someone to translate the content (and documentation in the code) - which
really requires a native Chinese speaker (what about both variants of the
language?) and they need the technical language - a very rare person indeed in
the UK, I expect!

~~~
wrong_variable
Not rare at all.

There are a lot of chinese students walking around MVB. You just need to walk
up to them and start talking !

What would be difficult is finding a chinese person who shares the same amount
of passion in your project.

MVB is the optimal place for finding that person !

Tell me about it - Uni halls are super noisy. Don't you have a friend who
lives in a quiet place ?

~~~
EdNutting
Yes MVB has lots of international students (as social secretary of BEEES I do
talk to them regularly! ;) ), but the ones who actually have all the technical
language (good enough to translate the docs accurately) are (at a guess) busy
third or fourth years. None the less, I'll ask around when I'm back in Bristol
(and post exam season).

It was just after first year so sadly not. Most of my friends moved out of
Bristol for the summer.

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pjmlp
After the Oberon derived OSes from ETHZ there is hardly any university
pursuing OS research in memory safe languages, so congratulations on the work
achieved so far.

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muazzam
Great! Keep it up.

~~~
EdNutting
Thanks!

------
EdNutting
Thanks for the share! This is really valuable for the project and has given us
great feedback and positive messages.

