v0.6 "Glassi": a whole new world.

Now with userspace and system calls, micron is growing ever so much closer to being a mature OS.

We added:

• MTRR write combining for increased framebuffer performance
• An integrated shell
• AHCI disk I/O
• System calls
• Userspace
• Relocatability / KASLR
• New bootloader

The number of features we did implement in this release are less than before, but they were all rather difficult features to implement.

This is what our roadmap looks like now:

1. RAM-backed VFS
2. Scheduling/processes
3. GPT/FAT32 driver
4. More robust system calls
5. (PE ? ELF) program loader

Attached is a compressed FAT32 image. Unzip it, then boot it in QEMU with -machine q35, or VirtualBox with chipset ICH9, for proper effect.

v0.5 "Metallix": a whole lotta new features and a whole lotta new fixes

This release, dubbed v0.5 "Metallix", is a BIG one, and I mean a HUGE F*CKING release.

New features:

• Paging
• Page allocation manager
• Heap
• Heap allocation manager
• Serial console
• Smaller text
• Support for background coloring on terminal
• Double framebuffer
• Text buffer, scrollable terminal
• PIT timer
• Sleep() function
• TUI (text-based interactive UI)
• printf()
• Memory operations
• More string operations
• Keyboard queue
• New bootloader using the Stivale protocol

So, pretty f-ing big release, amirite?

Please test this on your computers if you feel so inclined.

Upcoming features include (in order of priority):

1. PC speaker driver (beep boop)
2. PCI enumeration
3. Keyboard driver overhaul
4. AHCI driver
5. System calls

We have attached a FAT image, rather than an ISO. You should be able to mount/extract the files same way you would with an ISO.

Keyboard support, and more stability.

We have fixed our GDT, IDT, interrupt handlers and keyboard driver.

We have also added support for the backspace key and backspace escape code!
This means that we have now gotten farther than we were before we started this UEFI revolution!

Our current development roadmap looks a little bit like this:

1. Keyboard queue
2. Memory management
3. Disk I/O
4. Filesystem
5. Usermode!

Text output in kernel mode! Even more hardware!

The team working on micron (me) have made major strides since the last release.

Headline features:

• We now have proper text output in kernel mode! The text output you saw before was using UEFI's text output functions, but we now have text output in kernel mode!

Minor features:

• We now have access to the UEFI runtime services, and we can get/set time, and reboot/shutdown the system.

Now, the status on hardware. Using a general-purpose graphics driver, we now support almost every display and almost every graphics card! This is due to our dynamic video modes, because now, instead of like before, the OS chooses the supposedly optimal video mode for your display. And due to a few optimizations, the

error opening graphics output protocol on the current console out handle: unsupported

is now nonexistent.

We now have support for so much more hardware!

Thank you for staying with us.

Bug fix! Boots on real hardware!

This release resolves the serial dependency bug.

This OS now boots on the majority of computers that came out after 2013.

We know a lot of people here might have slightly older computers.

We're working on supporting some of those older computers.

Besides that, enjoy the new release!

Second release: major updates! UEFI!

The OS has been completely overhauled and now we are proud to announce that you can run micron on real hardware! Well, maybe.

Due to a major bug in our bootloader you can only run micron on PCs that have a serial port that is actively connected to a device.

Niche, right?

We are currently hurrying on a bug fix to make this work for everyone!

In other news, we have implemented graphics into our OS! That means you will see a beautiful surprise when you boot micron. To find out, boot it, of course.

In sad news, we are here to announce we will be officially dropping all support for 32-bit x86 systems. You can't dwell on the past.

Anyway, enjoy the new release!

First release!

This initial release creates a proper VGA driver, so that you can print colorful text. We have a semblance of memory management. This release is the current development build with some features disabled to ensure stability.

The attached disc image is built for i686, and has only been tested via QEMU. Testing on physical hardware is discouraged without guidance, therefore doing so will be at your own risk.