CC Operating Systems and their uses

Hey guys,

There's one thing I'm curious of on these forums and that is the obsession with different OSes for CC. Personally, I'm not very creative and I don't think of many things that other people do, but from downloading and trying multiple (about 6) of the OSes in the forum, I've discovered that all of them do very similar things, in very similar ways and they're all completely pointless as far as I can tell, other than maybe giving mouse control of a file explorer instead of using ls commands and such. Also, the movable and resizeable windows are cool 'n' all, but do they have any use? They seem to bug out and break or at least become very difficult to read if you move them around at all.

So basically, the main point of this thread is: what use are all the OSes that people have made, or are they pretty much just completely for fun?

i think most of it is the psychological boost writing a graphic shell gives inexperienced programmers. basically, it reduces the true art of operating system design and implementation to that of a really simple windowed program that interacts with other programs in a specific way.

it all pretty much started when someone wrote a desktop environment for CC and called it an "OS"

I wouldn't be so quick to call all operating systems useless:

oeed has made a beautiful OS called OneOS (which is in private beta) that has some useful features.

I myself (though I'm pretty damn close to abandoning it) have written awsmazingOS, which has features like awsmazing Guard virus protection, 2-factor authentication (as in you need a password and another form of authentication, like an RFID or mag-strip card, or a pair of terminal glasses to log in), automatic file encryption and more. (I have to admit that a ton of the features are security-related, to stop the server admins who like to pry at people's stuff)

An OS can have it's useful features, and as long as it allows you to use your standard shell, it's something that can most often improve your experience. I use awsmazingOS on almost all of my singleplayer computers (both to test and for the features), and it can also assist a new user who is inexperienced with CC.

Yea, as awsmazinggenius said, I've made (it's 99% done, basically waiting for the App Store completion now) an OS that tries to me as useful as possible, unlike most OSs, PearOS included. I haven't public released the link yet, nor will I put I'll PM it to you if you want it.

It essentially makes it much easier to use multiple programs and manage your files. It does have a few cool little features here and there such as being able to send files to other computers really easily, zip like packaging. But yes most OSs simply have a pointless login screen and thousands of sleep calls.

Well i didn't even go for whole OS part - I made Extended shell that simply added tab-completition and file searching and some other small extras to standard shell. It was simple thing that i needed for myself and after consulting some people it ended in OS part of forums so other people could enjoy it too ;p Did someone use it? I don't know. But i had fun making it.

As for OS-es themselves there are 3-5 real and useful ones out there - rest is just login screens and "graphical" interfaces that don't work.

If you'd like to see one that does windowing fairly well, check out LyqydOS. It was one of the first, if not the first, of the OSs to do any sort of multitasking using individual windows for programs.

Really, the main point is just to program something interesting. Like anything else in ComputerCraft, they're written for fun and/or personal edification. Other people enjoying them is just a pleasant bonus if it happens. :)/>/>

Yeah, all OS-making is pretty much for fun. It's moderately complex and is very visible, which makes it satisfying to accomplish.

That being said, even though I've made OSes before, they've never been graphical. I personally think that making something that overrides (or even uses) the term API is tedious and boring, so I usually stay away from graphical programs– this extends to OSes. Instead, I prefer to work on the internals, adding features that are command-line based (for example, the piping used in LeadLined-OS).


Speaking of LeadLined-OS, here's an idea I would be trying, if I wasn't as lazy:
What if you made an OS that could use another OS as a graphical shell, similar to how the X Window System runs on top of a Linux kernel?
I was actually thinking of trying this in LeadLined-OS, using filesystem sandboxing, but eventually lost interest due to unrelated issues.

oeed, on 14 February 2014 - 12:53 AM said:

Yea, as awsmazinggenius said, I've made (it's 99% done, basically waiting for the App Store completion now) an OS that tries to me as useful as possible, unlike most OSs, PearOS included. I haven't public released the link yet, nor will I put I'll PM it to you if you want it.

It essentially makes it much easier to use multiple programs and manage your files. It does have a few cool little features here and there such as being able to send files to other computers really easily, zip like packaging. But yes most OSs simply have a pointless login screen and thousands of sleep calls.

To be quite honest, IMHO it's more of an OS for helping beginners interface with computers; for extra functionality I'd recommend LyqydOS