I am making an OS on Ubuntu, but setting up cross compilers is to difficult (other questions did not help). Is it possible to make an OS only in assembly to avoid C or C++ cross-compilers?
PS: Is there a good cross-compiling resource for Ubuntu 64 bit to i386:x86_64 please let me know.
2
Answers
The correct but useless answer is – yes, it’s possible. Anything C/C++ does, assembly can do, too. If your next question is – how, the only possible answer would be "read a book". This is a small question with a book length answer. Yes, anything you can code in C/C++ you can also code in assembly… but it will take you 10 times longer, especially with debugging.
That aside, putting together a working OS in assembly will be an order of magnitude more complicated and time consuming than setting up cross compilation. If that is a challenge for you, maybe you shouldn’t tackle a whole OS just yet.
Yes. Indeed, this used to be common before Unix which introduced portability of operating systems across architectures. Operating systems like Digital Equipment’s RSX-11 were written in assembler. A somewhat famous academic example is Alexia Massalin’s 1992 Synthesis kernel, a small kernel with a Unix compatibility layer. It was written in Motorola 68020 assembly and represented a minor rebellion against high level language OSes. It was very fast for its time.