NyxOS, rebuilt from scratch in D — a freestanding Multiboot kernel that boots on bare metal

     

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About

Part of the NyxOS family — the same OS, rebuilt from zero in a different language each time. This is the D cut, built in D's -betterC mode: no garbage collector, no TypeInfo, no D runtime. A small Multiboot assembly stub calls kmain(), and D writes its banner straight to VGA text memory.

NyxOS-D booting in QEMU — D's -betterC mode writing to the VGA text buffer

Why D: -betterC gives you D's expressiveness with no runtime or GC — ideal for a kernel. Proven in the wild by PowerNex.

Build & run

Needs ldc2, nasm, ld, and qemu. (SIMD is disabled via -mattr=-sse,-sse2,-mmx — a bare kernel has no SSE enabled, so LLVM must not auto-vectorize.)

make        # -> nyxos-d.elf  (verified Multiboot with grub-file)
make run    # boot it in QEMU

Layout

• boot.asm — Multiboot header + entry stub that calls kmain
• kernel.d — the freestanding D kernel (VGA console)
• linker.ld — links the kernel at 1 MiB, Multiboot header first
• Makefile — build and boot

Status

Early — it boots and paints the screen. Next up: a GDT, interrupts, and a VGA console struct.