HexiumOS

A minimal 32-bit operating system kernel written in Rust, featuring a command-line interface, file system, text editor, Snake game, and ASCII video player.

Features

🎮 Entertainment

• Snake Game: Classic snake game with keyboard controls
• ASCII Video Player: Play videos converted to ASCII art (includes Bad Apple demo)
• Real-time rendering with configurable FPS

💻 System Features

• Command-Line Interface: Interactive shell with multiple commands
• File System: In-memory file system with directory support
• Text Editor: Built-in editor for creating and modifying files
• VGA Text Mode: Custom VGA driver with color support
• Keyboard Driver: PS/2 keyboard input with interrupt handling
• Interrupt Descriptor Table (IDT): Proper interrupt management

📁 File System Commands

• Create, read, write, and delete files
• Directory management (mkdir, rmdir, cd)
• File listing and navigation
• In-memory storage (up to 32 files, 4KB each)

Prerequisites

• Rust (nightly toolchain)
• NASM or GNU as (assembler)
• GNU ld (linker)
• QEMU (for running the OS)
• Python 3 with OpenCV (for video conversion)

Building

Quick Start

# Build the OS
make

# Build and run in QEMU
make run

# Clean build artifacts
make clean

# Rebuild from scratch
make rebuild

Manual Build Steps

# Create bin directory
mkdir -p bin

# Assemble boot code
as --32 src/boot.asm -o bin/boot.o

# Compile Rust kernel
rustc --target i686-unknown-linux-gnu --crate-type staticlib \
      -C opt-level=2 -C panic=abort -C relocation-model=static \
      -C target-feature=-sse,-sse2,+soft-float \
      -o bin/kernel.o src/kernel.rs

# Link everything
ld -m elf_i386 -T src/linker.ld -o bin/myos.bin bin/boot.o bin/kernel.o

# Run in QEMU
qemu-system-i386 -kernel bin/myos.bin

Build To ISO Steps

# Make iso
make iso

Usage

Available Commands

Once HexiumOS boots, you'll see the HexiumOS prompt. Type help to see available commands:

General Commands

• help - Display help information
• clear - Clear the screen
• hello - Print a greeting message
• info - Display system information
• echo <text> - Echo text back to the terminal

Entertainment

• snake - Launch the Snake game
• Use arrow keys to control
• ESC to exit
• play <video> - Play an ASCII video
• play badapple - Play Bad Apple video
• play rahh - Play RAHH video
• ESC to exit playback

File System

• ls - List files and directories in current directory
• cd <dir> - Change to specified directory
• pwd - Print working directory
• mkdir <dir> - Create a new directory
• rmdir <dir> - Remove an empty directory
• touch <file> - Create an empty file
• cat <file> - Display file contents
• edit <file> - Open file in text editor
• write <file> - Write text to a file
• rm <file> - Delete a file

Text Editor Controls

• Type to insert text
• Backspace - Delete character
• ESC - Save and exit editor

Converting Videos to ASCII

HexiumOS includes a Python script to convert videos into ASCII art format:

python convert_video.py <video_file> [options]

Options:
  --width WIDTH      ASCII width (default: 80)
  --height HEIGHT    ASCII height (default: 24)
  --fps FPS          Target FPS (default: 15)
  --output OUTPUT    Output Rust file (default: src/bad_apple_data.rs)
  --invert           Invert colors (white on black)

Example

# Convert a video to ASCII
python convert_video.py badapple.mp4 --width 80 --height 24 --fps 15 --output src/bad_apple_data.rs

# Rebuild the OS with the new video
make rebuild

# Run and play the video
make run
# Then type: play badapple

Technical Details

Architecture

• Target: i686 (32-bit x86)
• Boot: Custom bootloader using multiboot
• Memory: Direct VGA buffer access (0xB8000)
• Interrupts: Custom IDT with keyboard interrupt handler

Rust Features Used

• #![no_std] - Bare metal development
• #![no_main] - Custom entry point
• Static compilation with panic=abort
• Soft-float arithmetic (no SSE/SSE2)

Memory Layout

• VGA Buffer: 0xB8000 (80x25 text mode)
• Kernel: Loaded at 1MB physical address
• File System: Static arrays in kernel memory

Video Player

• Stores pre-rendered ASCII frames
• Implements frame timing for consistent FPS
• Supports multiple video formats
• Direct VGA buffer manipulation for performance

File System

• In-memory implementation
• Maximum 32 files
• Maximum 4KB per file
• Maximum 16 directories
• Hierarchical directory structure

Controls

General

• Type commands and press Enter
• Use Backspace to delete characters

Snake Game

• ↑ Arrow Up - Move up
• ↓ Arrow Down - Move down
• ← Arrow Left - Move left
• → Arrow Right - Move right
• ESC - Exit game

Video Player

• ESC - Stop playback and return to CLI

Text Editor

• Regular typing - Insert text
• Backspace - Delete character
• ESC - Save and exit

Known Limitations

• No persistence (file system is RAM-only)
• Maximum file size: 4KB
• No multitasking
• No network support
• Limited to VGA text mode (80x25)
• No dynamic memory allocation

Future Enhancements

• [ ] Persistent file system (disk I/O)
• [ ] More video codec support
• [ ] Additional games and applications
• [ ] Network stack
• [ ] GUI support
• [ ] Multi-processing
• [ ] Additional drivers (mouse, sound)

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Feel free to submit issues or pull requests.

License

This project is open source and available under the MIT License.