If our OS supports only one architecture, I'll choose x86. You won't be surprised by this. Now let's study how the cpu works and, most importantly, how x86 protect mode works.
We're going to write some code when learning protect mode. Soon you'll find a 512-byte boot sector is too small for us. My solution to this problem is to test our code in FreeDOS:
compile the assembly code to COM format:
$ nasm foo.asm -o foo.com
create a new floppy image (say
pm.img) and copy the COM file to it:$ sudo mount -o loop pm.img /mnt/floppy $ sudo cp foo.com /mnt/floppy/ $ sudo umount /mnt/floppy
"insert" the new floppy into the virtual machine by adding a line in
bochsrc:floppya: 1_44=freedos.img, status=inserted floppyb: 1_44=pm.img, status=inserted
run FreeDos:
$ bochs
run our code:
A:\>B:\foo.com
You can try the instructions above in directory b.
Remember to replace foo.asm with the true source file name and unzip the image files first.