Welcome to the starting point of your kernel! This is where you get to fulfill your wildest dreams ... or maybe get them crushed :( Disclaimer: The following kernel is provided to you from the following source: http://www.jamesmolloy.co.uk/tutorial_html/ Specifically, it is the section #6 paging kernel with some minor modifications for our FCS lab environment. I highly encourage you to go through tutorial sections 1-6 as they discuss the kernel and will teach you a LOT about the code base you are starting from. You can also look at the tutorials 7 - 10, however be aware that how he developed his kernel will be different than how we develop ours. For example, we will not be doing a virtual filesystem (VFS). To compile the kernel source you will need to change into the "src" directory and run "make". To run your kernel you will have to run the following custom FCS script that is on the linux machines: fcs-qemu-run-kernel -kernel src/kernel -bootdisk floppy.img The script takes two arguments: -kernel <filename> This specifies the kernel that you have compiled. -bootdisk <filename> This specifies the initial bootdisk you need to launch your OS. Think of it as your initial harddrive in the computer. This file is likely to not change in the course. With the proper arguments the script will create a new ramdisk that contains your kernel and then launch qemu (i386 emulator) with the ramdisk. This is *very* similar to how you would start natively on an i386 machine. Once the emulator starts it will launch a new terminal window where you can see the output from your kernel. As always, your execution will start with the main method :) Good luck!!!