🌫️ Minit 🌫️

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Minit is a simple x86 bootloader made from scratch, that can work on real hardware (checked on Acer Aspire E5-532)

This training project made for learning how the PC works. Every bug fix and improvement are welcome, so don't be shy to contribute. It uses MIT license so you can do anything with this code!

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What can it do?

• Boot from BIOS with assembly 1st stage
• Enable A20 line via Fast A20 Gate
• Set up GDT with 32-bit and 64-bit code/data segments
• Read disk through BIOS int 0x13
• Transition to Protected Mode and Long Mode
• Configure paging with 2MB pages (only first 1GB of physical memory)
• Parse ELF64 headers and dynamically load kernel to memory
• Jump to kernel and hand off control
• etc...

It uses Mistic - own freestanding C standard library

In future...

• Real-mode thunk to dynamic search kernel on the disk
• Own VERY simple ext-like FS
• Pass boot info to the kernel

All new features and changes will be posted first to my Telegram channel

Get started

Requirements:

• QEMU
• Clang
• NASM
• Make
• Mistic

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I highly recommend using it with Mist, but also you can configure your kernel to it (In future there will be config and simplified compatibility with custom kernels). You can start with 2 ways:

1. Compile by yourself:

Details

- Clone depended [Mistic](https://github.com/MistWorks/Mistic) repo:

mkdir MisrWorks && cd MistWorks
git clone https://github.com/MistWorks/Mistic

• Clone Minit repo:

git clone https://github.com/MistWorks/Minit

• Compile (Clang):

cd Minit
make

• Run with QEMU:

make run

2. Use already compiled Minit.img from releases (it won't start normally without OS):

Details

• Copy Minit.img:

wget https://github.com/MistWorks/Minit/releases/download/v0.4/Minit.img

• Run with QEMU:

qemu-system-x86_64 -drive format=raw,file=Minit.img -no-reboot

Issues

Minit - young hobby project

It may contain bugs and errors

If you have one of these, you can visit the issues

Also you can do pull requests with your code. You're welcome!