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Hello Everybody,
I have had some experience programming operating systems before - I wrote up scripts that go into protected mode, scripts that directly communicate with the floppy drive, scripts that create a simple GUI, etc. Each time, I kept on getting held up because I wasn't really getting anywhere. I was focusing to much on how the OS should manage it's memory and resources.. when that is not why I wanted to build it in the first place.
My ultimate goal has been, and still is to be able to connect to the Internet. I don't care about file systems or processes.... I will manage them after I can connect to the Internet. I know how manage file systems and multiple processes - I've done so before.
So what is the problem? Well, my 486 test machine doesn't have internet. My relatively new laptop is made from Dell, and they of course have completely non-standard wireless card. It's so non-standard probably only Windows, and possibly Linux's ndiswrapper can get it to work. As you can see, I am kind of stuck.
I do not want to go and buy some open source ethernet card for many reasons, but mainly because I am, and will be, extremely limited to access of ethernet. (One of the reasons I got a laptop with a wireless card).
I do not want to use qemu or bochs that emulates an NE2000, because when I actually progress this system, I do not want to just have an emulation that could theoretically work with right hardware.
In that case it becomes similar to simply a program that runs on standard libraries.
I can already easily generate (and understand) raw IP sockets on Windows and Linux, so no point writing up a driver that will be emulated, to have the same functionality.
Additionally emulation limits much functionality as it completely blocks the fact that I'm on wireless.
So, as you can see, I am stuck. I am guessing that the are a couple of people on this website that feel the same way and feel that they cannot do anything about it.
So now, I have a couple of choices:
1. I can buy an open source well documented (probably expensive) Wireless card. I do not know of any cards like this. If it connects through USB, then starting from scratch would be completely horrible. I would be spending a LOT of time trying to use USB correctly.. it would take me months to get it right, before I even think about the wireless card.
2. Figure out how Linux does it and magically get it to work. I am not good with decoding Linux (I mostly program in assembly, not C)... if anybody can point me in the right direction, I would be amazed... Understanding Linux seems to be very tough especially with a non-standard wireless card. I can try and decode how ndiswrapper works and how the libraries in Linux work that ndiswrapper uses.... but once again, that would be rather difficult for me. Does anyone here specialize in that? I can get a more standard wireless card that almost any Linux distro can run out of the box, but I think it would still be difficult.. I will probably be copying a majority of the linux networking code, but I would also have to copy a whole bunch of helper codes, like accessing the USB, etc... a real mess.
3. Anybody have any better suggestions? I have studied these systems for quite some time, and I can easily see that I'm stuck in a tight spot.
For anyone's interest, I have a "Dell Wireless 1390 802.11g Mini Card" on a "Inspiron 1525".
I would really appreciate for someone to actually have a resourceful response to this post.
Without your answer, I am lost and at halt for operating system development.
If someone is trying to head for a similar goal to mine, I would be willing to work with you.
Thank you every much,
Veniamin
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