tools/posix/setup-fedora.sh installs the toolchain and reports what it cannot: PowerShell has no Fedora package, and bootcheck is the test suite, so the script says how to get pwsh rather than failing quietly. It also checks /dev/kvm, since a Ryzen box can run the tests at native speed. docs/moving-to-linux.md is the actual procedure: copy the repo, restore the memory, install, build. The memory travels inside the repo and `memory-sync.sh import` puts it under the key this machine derives from its own path -- /home/nexoniarz/Documents/SchOS becomes -home-nexoniarz-Documents-SchOS, where D:\DEV\SchOS was D--DEV-SchOS. OVMF discovery no longer assumes QEMU's Windows layout. Fedora ships edk2-ovmf to /usr/share/edk2/ovmf/, Debian and Arch differ again, so the Makefile searches a list and names the packages when it finds nothing. Tested through the shell rather than $(wildcard): on Windows make is a native binary using Win32 file calls, while `command -v` returns an MSYS path like /c/Users/..., which $(wildcard) cannot see -- it returned nothing on a machine that had the firmware. Two things only that machine can test: `make ports` builds musl, toybox and mksh from source, which Windows cannot do at all; and the SchFS round-trip needs symlinks and hard links, so it has never actually run.
5.1 KiB
Building SchOS
Supported hosts: Linux, macOS, FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD, and Windows (under Git Bash or MSYS2). The build is developed from both Windows and Linux, so a change that only works on one of them is a bug.
make # kernel + bootloader + root filesystem -> schos.img
make qemu # build and boot it
Prerequisites
| Need | Why | Windows | Linux | macOS | BSD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
clang, ld.lld, llvm-objcopy, llvm-objdump |
cross-compiles the kernel, the 16/32-bit boot code, and musl userland | LLVM installer | clang lld llvm |
brew install llvm |
pkg install llvm |
make |
— | Git Bash | make |
Xcode CLT | gmake |
perl |
generates the interrupt vector table | Git Bash | usually present | present | pkg install perl5 |
python3 |
boot logo, crash-screen QR | python.org (python) |
python3 |
brew install python |
pkg install python3 |
qemu-system-x86_64 |
running and testing | scoop install qemu |
qemu-system-x86 |
brew install qemu |
pkg install qemu |
curl, tar |
fetching ports | Git Bash | present | present | present |
xorriso or mkisofs |
make iso only |
scoop install cdrtools |
xorriso |
brew install xorriso |
pkg install xorriso |
A host C compiler (cc) is also needed, for the tools that build the disk
images. On Windows that must be mingw-w64's gcc, not clang: clang defaults
to an MSVC target there, and tools/mkfs.c needs <unistd.h> and <dirent.h>,
which the Windows SDK does not have.
Why clang rather than a cross-gcc
clang is a cross-compiler by construction, so one ordinary LLVM install targets
everything this tree needs — bare-metal ELF, code linked below one megabyte, and
Linux/musl userland — from any host. A cross binutils+gcc would be a day of
setup per platform that then rots, and on macOS it means brewing
x86_64-elf-gcc before anything builds at all.
The Makefile selects clang+lld whenever both are on PATH. To force the GNU
toolchain instead:
make USE_GNU=1 # needs a cross toolchain that emits x86_64 ELF
make USE_GNU=1 TOOLPREFIX=x86_64-elf-
Testing
tools/windows/bootcheck.ps1 # boots, drives the shell, asserts on output
tools/windows/bootcheck.ps1 -Tty -Ps # plus terminal behaviour and process listing
make schfs-check # SchFS unit, object and image suites
bootcheck is PowerShell, and PowerShell 7 (pwsh) runs on Linux, macOS and
the BSDs as well as Windows — brew install powershell, or your distribution's
powershell package. It finds QEMU on PATH.
Booting to a prompt proves nothing on its own: a filesystem can mount and still
fail the first real command, which has happened here. bootcheck types commands
at the serial console and greps the transcript for the answers they should
produce.
Ports
musl, toybox and mksh are built from source into sysroot/. This does
not work on a Windows host — make prints ports: skipped and uses whatever
is already staged in sysroot/. Building them needs a Linux host (or any other
Unix); do it once and the staged result serves the Windows builds.
Where the tools live
tools/ is grouped by what runs the file, so it is obvious at a glance which
tools a given host can use:
tools/
windows/ .ps1 PowerShell (pwsh runs these on Linux and macOS too)
posix/ .sh shell
python/ .py
*.c host programs -- compiled by the build, run everywhere
*.pl perl, likewise
The .c and .pl files stay at the top level because they are not
host-specific: the build compiles or invokes them on every platform.
A script that needs the repo root derives it from its own location, so anything
moved between these directories has to have that adjusted — the PowerShell tools
use Split-Path (Split-Path $PSScriptRoot -Parent) -Parent, two levels up.
Known host differences, already handled
Listed because they are the shape of the next such bug, not because anything is outstanding:
<sys/sysmacros.h>is glibc/musl only. macOS and the BSDs takemajor()andminor()from<sys/types.h>.sha256sumexists on Linux and Git Bash; macOS hasshasum -a 256, FreeBSD/NetBSDsha256, OpenBSDcksum -a sha256.tools/posix/sha256check.shfinds whichever is present.nprocis coreutils, so absent on macOS and BSD, where it issysctl -n hw.ncpu.- In the PowerShell tools, path literals must use forward slashes:
Join-Path $root 'build\x'produces a filename containing a backslash on a Unix host.
Fedora, in one command
tools/posix/setup-fedora.sh --check # what is missing
tools/posix/setup-fedora.sh # install it
Moving an existing checkout to a Linux machine: see moving-to-linux.md.
Working on two machines
Claude Code's project memory is kept in the repo and moved with:
tools/posix/memory-sync.sh status
tools/posix/memory-sync.sh export # after a session that learned something; then commit
tools/posix/memory-sync.sh import # after cloning or pulling elsewhere