MikeOS For Linux

MikeOS is an open source, freely distributed and independent computer operating system for x86 (16-bit) personal computers, written entirely in the assembly language, intended to be used as a learning tool for those who want to learn how real-mode operating systems work.

The OS runs in 16-bit mode (for BIOS access) and doesn't require high-end hardware components. Current features include a command-line interface, menu-based program selector, numerous system calls, and rudimentary DOS compatibility.

It also includes an API for developers, a BASIC interpreter with 46 instructions, as well as example programs. To run MikeOS, just download the compressed archive from our downloads section above, extract it and write it to a floppy, CD or USB media.

The MikeOS operating system is distributed only as a source package, which means that you will have to compile the source code in order to build executables for a specific platform. It can be build for GNU/Linux, OpenBSD, Microsoft Windows, or Mac OS X.

To build MikeOS using the source package, begin by downloading the latest release from Softpedia or the project’s website, save the ZIP archive on a location of your choice, preferably your Home directory, and use an archive manager utility to extract its contents.

After extracting the contents of the archive, open a terminal emulator program, use the ‘cd’ command to navigate to the location where you’ve extracted that archive file (e.g. cd /home/softpedia/mikeos-4.5) and run the ‘sh build-linux.sh’ command as root (system administrator).

The ISO image of MikeOS will be generated in the “disk_images” folder and can be written to a CD or USB media using either a CD/DVD burning software or a tool for writing ISO images to USB disks.