Instead of a beagleboard you could use a raspberry pi. There is a tutorial on developing an OS in ARM assembly for it too.
I was going to suggest the Raspberry Pi as well. It is a very capable board for $35. You can't really go wrong with it. 700Mhz ARM chip, 10/100 Ethernet, HDMI out, 2x USB 2 ports, audio out, an SD card slot and 512Mb of RAM. What more do you need?
AFAIK they only make model A and B with 128/256 MB RAM, respectively, though with a model C in mind. But it is a great tool/toy with credit card dimensions, requiring a mere 5 W from an ordinary AC/DC charger and even contains a GPU capable of decoding 1080p (x264) without hassle. Unfortunately, it is only produced in small production batches (still waiting for my own copy since mid-July), since they initially expected a lot less demand from private buyers.
AFAIK they only make model A and B with 128/256 MB RAM, respectively, though with a model C in mind.
Incorrect.
What’s the difference between Model A and Model B?
Model A has 256Mb RAM, one USB port and no Ethernet (network connection). Model B has 512Mb RAM, 2 USB port and an Ethernet port.
[/quote] http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs
can u people quit discussing os development. All i want is something to create an inmteractive program. If coding is needed, I would prefer python or java and btw, whats svg
Well, your thread suggests you were interested in OS development... if you're not, then I have no idea what you're trying to do (or better yet, why or what the point is)... You're initial question has already been answered though, just use whatever graphics API you're best with... Anything will work...
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TL;DR - you don't need to program if you want to "mock up" an operating system. A design idea can be done in flash, a workable demo can be done in Java or any other programming language on top of an existing OS (this is what Nintendo did for their Gecko emulation, and AmiOS - the AmigaOS open source project - has been doing for a while).
For those who were led here by the (slightly misleading) "Create an operating system" title, here are some links to how others are using qemu and gdb to develop low-level system code for ARM processors on their cheap, readily-available PC hardware:
can u people quit discussing os development. All i want is something to create an inmteractive program. If coding is needed, I would prefer python or java and btw, whats svg
You could write a python program with pyglet or whatever that runs other python chunks, with a homescreen and everything that looks like what you might want. It would teach you more about the language itself, even if you never want to use that program for anything practical.
Y'know, I'd be interested in buying a good book on writing an OS, if anyone wants to write one and put it up on Amazon. I'd probably learn a lot from it, if nothing else.
AFAIK they only make model A and B with 128/256 MB RAM, respectively, though with a model C in mind. But it is a great tool/toy with credit card dimensions, requiring a mere 5 W from an ordinary AC/DC charger and even contains a GPU capable of decoding 1080p (x264) without hassle. Unfortunately, it is only produced in small production batches (still waiting for my own copy since mid-July), since they initially expected a lot less demand from private buyers.
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I'd chase your purchase up. They have more manufacturing plants running in larger batches now and no longer have any order delays, havent done since early august. Infact a friend ordered a model B when they announced the 512mb upgrade, on his doorstep in 2 days.
Model A still isn't shipping yet (no idea why) but is now using the 256mb chipset from the original model B.
Model B is now shipping on a revision 2 PCB with 512mb RAM instead of the original 256 of first revision boards. Price is the same.
The SoC used only has a single USB port supporting acting as a slave aswell as host. On the model A they break this port straight out into a single USB connector. On the B they run this through an onboard hub first which splits it off into 2 ports and an ethernet port (through yet another chip, so yes, technically ethernet is a USB device although I think the firmware in the GPU does some trickery to expose the hub as a network driver and 2 dedicated ports) which does limit the bandwidth of USB devices considerably, also impacts ethernet performance.
Some of the GPU firmware is now open source.
Back on topic, yes OP, your virtual OS is just a graphical app which just happens to have the functions of a media player and a text editor and god knows what else. There are plenty of them out there. Any graphics library will do the job fine with any language capable of playing audio. Easiest way to do it would probably be to use .net win forms application, create one main form which is your desktop and set it to be an MDI parent, other forms can then be opened inside it.
