Introduction

What DavOS is

go-dav-os is a minimal kernel written in Go (compiled with gccgo) with critical low-level parts in x86_64 assembly.

It is not trying to be a full production OS. It is a learning project focused on core operating system mechanics.

What is in this project

• Boot with GRUB + Multiboot2
• x86_64 long mode transition
• Kernel with basic interrupts (timer and keyboard)
• Very small round-robin scheduler
• Physical memory management using 4 KiB pages
• In-memory filesystem
• ATA PIO disk driver + FAT16
• Text shell with diagnostic commands

What is not in this project (yet)

• Advanced process isolation
• Full per-process virtual memory
• Multi-core support
• Modern drivers (AHCI, USB, networking, and so on)

Minimal prerequisites

You do not need to be an OS expert. It helps if you know:

• basic Assembler/Go
• what an interrupt handler is (high-level idea)
• difference between RAM and disk

If terms are unfamiliar, start with the glossary first.