rust-raspberrypi-OS-tutorials README

The project's README from github.com/rust-embedded/rust-raspberrypi-OS-tutorials. As one markdown file: README.md.

Operating System development tutorials in Rust on the Raspberry Pi


ℹ️ Introduction

This is a tutorial series for hobby OS developers who are new to ARM's 64 bit ARMv8-A architecture. The tutorials will give a guided, step-by-step tour of how to write a monolithic Operating System kernel for an embedded system from scratch. They cover implementation of common Operating Systems tasks, like writing to the serial console, setting up virtual memory and handling HW exceptions. All while leveraging Rust's unique features to provide for safety and speed.

Have fun!

Best regards,
Andre (@andre-richter)

P.S.: For other languages, please look out for alternative README files. For example, README.CN.md or README.ES.md. Many thanks to our translators 🙌.

📑 Organization

Output of make doc

make doc

🛠 System Requirements

The tutorials are primarily targeted at Linux-based distributions. Most stuff will also work on macOS, but this is only experimental.

🚀 The tl;dr Version

  1. Install Docker Engine.

  2. (Linux only) Ensure your user account is in the docker group.

  3. Prepare the Rust toolchain. Most of it will be handled on first use through the rust-toolchain.toml file. What's left for us to do is:

    1. If you already have a version of Rust installed:

      cargo install cargo-binutils rustfilt

    2. If you need to install Rust from scratch:

      curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

source $HOME/.cargo/env
cargo install cargo-binutils rustfilt

  4. In case you use Visual Studio Code, I strongly recommend installing the Rust Analyzer extension.

  5. (macOS only) Install a few Ruby gems.

This was last tested by the author with Ruby version 3.0.2 on macOS Monterey. If you are using rbenv, the respective .ruby-version file is already in place. If you never heard of rbenv, try using this little guide.

Run this in the repository root folder:

bundle config set --local path '.vendor/bundle'
bundle config set --local without 'development'
bundle install

🧰 More Details: Eliminating Toolchain Hassle

This series tries to put a strong focus on user friendliness. Therefore, efforts were made to eliminate the biggest painpoint in embedded development as much as possible: Toolchain hassle.

Rust itself is already helping a lot in that regard, because it has built-in support for cross-compilation. All that we need for cross-compiling from an x86 host to the Raspberry Pi's AArch64 architecture will be automatically installed by rustup. However, besides the Rust compiler, we will use some more tools. Among others:

There is a lot that can go wrong while installing and/or compiling the correct version of each tool on your host machine. For example, your distribution might not provide the latest version that is needed. Or you are missing some hard-to-get dependencies for the compilation of one of these tools.

This is why we will make use of Docker whenever possible. We are providing an accompanying container that has all the needed tools or dependencies pre-installed, and it gets pulled in automagically once it is needed. If you want to know more about Docker and peek at the provided container, please refer to the repository's docker folder.

📟 USB Serial Output

Since the kernel developed in the tutorials runs on the real hardware, it is highly recommended to get a USB serial cable to get the full experience.

UART wiring diagram

🙌 Acknowledgements

The original version of the tutorials started out as a fork of Zoltan Baldaszti's awesome tutorials on bare metal programming on RPi3 in C. Thanks for giving me a head start!

Translations of this repository

License

Licensed under either of

at your option.

Contribution

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the work by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be dual licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.

rust-raspberrypi-OS-tutorials (rust-embedded/rust-raspberrypi-OS-tutorials)

Searching Database…

14.7K ·GitHub
Rust-raspberrypi-OS-tutorials
What is this?A step-by-step tutorial series that teaches you how to write your own embedded Operating System kernel from scratch in Rust, targeting the Raspberry Pi 3 and 4.
Is this a ready-made OS or a learning course?It is a learning course made of sequential lessons, each containing a stand-alone, bootable kernel binary that builds on the previous one, with a diff against the prior tutorial so you can see exactly what changed.
How do I run the kernel from a tutorial?Install Docker Engine, prepare the Rust toolchain (mostly handled automatically via rust-toolchain.toml), then build and run the kernel in QEMU; from tutorial 5 onward you can also load it onto a real Raspberry Pi over UART.
What tools do I need besides Rust itself?You need Docker (the project pulls a container with QEMU, OpenOCD and GDB pre-installed), rustup for cross-compilation, and on macOS a couple of Ruby gems; a USB-to-serial cable (ideally CP2102-based) is recommended for working with real hardware.
Does this work the same on macOS as on Linux?The tutorials primarily target Linux; macOS support is only experimental, and tutorials 1-5 are groundwork meant to run only in QEMU, not on real hardware.
Who is this course for?Hobby OS developers who are new to the 64-bit ARMv8-A architecture and want a guided introduction to writing kernel-level code in Rust.
What topics does the series actually cover?Common OS tasks such as writing to the serial console, setting up virtual memory, and handling hardware exceptions, implemented step by step using Rust's safety features.
Do I need special hardware to follow along?No, the first five tutorials are groundwork that run entirely in QEMU; from tutorial 5 onward you can flash the kernel to a real Raspberry Pi 3 or 4 and watch output over a USB serial cable.
Can I port this to a different board or architecture?Yes, the author designed the code in a modular fashion specifically to ease porting to other CPU architectures or boards, and even invites contributors to attempt a RISC-V port.
What are similar projects?raspberry-pi-os, linux, lytlnyblOS, redox, mu300-linux, flash-linux0.11-talk, sherpa-onnx, zxdesk
Which topics is it in?aarch64, bare-metal, os, embedded-systems, operating-system, arm64, kernel, raspberry-pi, embedded, hardware, guide, command-line
Creator
rust-embedded
Size
20.7 MB
Stars
14.7K
Updated
CommitDec 14
Age
8y
Commits · 90 Days