ScarabOS is a learning project focused on systems programming concepts. Purely a project for understanding how operating systems work from the ground up.

🚀 Quick Start

Prerequisites

Ensure you have the following installed:

Tool	Purpose
`rustup`	Rust toolchain manager (install here)
`grub`	Bootloader
`nasm`	x86 assembler
`qemu-full`	Virtualization (recommended for testing)
`xorriso`	ISO image creation
`mtools`	FAT filesystem utilities

On Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -S grub nasm qemu-full xorriso mtools

On Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt install grub-pc-bin nasm qemu-system-x86 xorriso mtools

🔧 Building from Source

1. Set up Rust

Install the nightly toolchain (pinned to January 2024 for stability):

rustup install nightly
rustup component add rust-src

2. Create virtual disk

Generate a raw disk image for the filesystem:

qemu-img create -f raw disk.img 10M

Note: Adjust size as needed (e.g. 50M for 50 megabytes)

3. Compile

First time setup:

make clean

⚠️ Run make clean once before your first build

Build the OS:

make

This creates scarab.img, your bootable OS image!

🎮 Running ScarabOS

Launch in QEMU with:

make run

You'll boot into a minimal terminal where you can explore the basic command system.

Use alt + 2 to open up the Qemu terminal and then type q or quit to exit the VM

📚 Learning Resources

This project was heavily inspired by:

Writing an OS in Rust by Philipp Oppermann
My Operating Systems professor in university
The Pintos educational OS

🤝 Contributing

This is a personal learning project, but feel free to:

Fork and experiment
Open issues for interesting ideas
Share your own OS development journey!