rou2exOS
Other
hobby operating system
SHOW HN2025
How HN took it
7 positive, 21 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 4 critical, out of 32 comments about the project. Thread score +0.12.
Idea: 4 for, 1 againstDesign: 2 for, 3 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Good idea to build a retro DOS-like OS as a learning project
From 2 comments
Memory-safe language. x86_64, with Arm on the roadmap. Networking stack. Boots from a CD and via multiboot. Your hobby project wipes the floor with DOS.
rollcat on HNThe original blog post has more details: https://krusty.space/projects/rourexos/ Ultimately, it's an eye of the beholder type thing, but it seems very fair to call it DOS-like to…
klank on HN
SLIP-based networking stack is appealing
From 1 comment
I love that the networking stack uses SLIP and slattach(1)! I was playing with a toy TCP/IP stack, and decided using SLIP over a pty on Linux was a great way to interface with…
mct on HN
Objections
Rust is not inherently safer; only 3% of the code is assembly, so it is mostly Rust
From 2 comments
> Rust and x86 assembly then > Memory-safe language. What's the point? Looks like today Rust is like 3D printing was. As if it makes something better. Printing was hyped and…
MoonGhost on HNYou can write memory safe code in any language, but having a machine i.e. the Rust compiler check it for you is less error-prone than if a human does it. Also if you look at the…
unchar1 on HN
Not really DOS-compatible; command set and architecture differ from MS-DOS
From 2 comments
DOS-like but not DOS-compatible, correct?
DrNosferatu on HNI don’t understand: what makes this “DOS-like”? Not even the command names match DOS, except for dir and cls, and the architecture and feature set are completely different.
jmmv on HN
Requests
Support for MS-DOS programs like Doom or Lotus 1-2-3
From 2 comments
Whoa there. Gotta run Doom and BASIC to compete with DOS. That is the officially recognized DOS-Kármán line.
pvg on HN...meaning MS-DOS compatible :) I.e.: runs Alley Cat and Dune 2 - and Doom.
DrNosferatu on HN
Support for GPT and FAT32 filesystems
From 2 comments
I would have preferred something like this to the current UEFI environment and shell, a FLOSS 64-bit DOS-like. A cool retro boot manager and diagnostic env perhaps. Could this…
mixmastamyk on HNBooting from an EFI system partition has not been tested yet. FAT12 is the only filesystem (ok, there is a memdisk implementation, but it won't work now) supported, so GPT is not…
krustowski on HN
Czech diacritics support
From 1 comment
Are you planning adding support for Czech diacritics?
pndy on HN
Questions
Why x86 rather than ARM
From 1 comment
Out of curiosity, why x86? Is it the preponderance of resources? The weird instruction format? The complexity of the boot sequence? Are you specifically trying to mimic DOS? > A…
OhNotAPaper on HN
Can it boot from an EFI system partition
From 1 comment
I would have preferred something like this to the current UEFI environment and shell, a FLOSS 64-bit DOS-like. A cool retro boot manager and diagnostic env perhaps. Could this…
mixmastamyk on HN
Does it write directly to VGA hardware
From 2 comments
I would have preferred something like this to the current UEFI environment and shell, a FLOSS 64-bit DOS-like. A cool retro boot manager and diagnostic env perhaps. Could this…
mixmastamyk on HNIs this using a custom VGA driver from scratch in Rust??
90s_dev on HN
Alternatives named
FreeDOS
From 1 comment
A version of (say) FreeDOS that was layered on top of the EFI API instead of PC98 firmware interrupts would be quite interesting. That would be a major architectural change to…
JdeBP on HN
DOSBox
From 1 comment
I did see that and for people that need that specific functionality it seemed like a good solution. My goal was more "What if DOS hadn't ended and but kept up support for modern…
leeter on HN