Hi..i am engineering student and i have always thought to making my own Operating System..may be modding ubuntu will satisfy me initially.

but the problem is how do i start!
I have Ubuntu installed on my Virtual PC and now...what?\
i have nearly zero knowledge of Linux.
Also apart from Ubuntu which Linux based should i use..?
I have Winxpsp2/c2d@2Ghz/512 MB RAM

How should i mod Linux based OS?

is that Macintosh OS X also based on Linux?
What is Windows based on...c++?

Also tell any ebook dat may help me starting up with Linux

You should search LQ for your questions,there are many answers here.About building your own OS,I suggest that you first start to learn about Linux,GNU,X,KDE,Gnome,shell,how to build,compile a program etc.etc.then you will see that you have a long way to go.I don't want to discurage you,but hey,you are in a new world and you just made your first step in exploring it.You could start from here: http://www.reallylinux.com/ .

There is a lot of information here in the tutorials and Wiki, if this is not what you are looking for then visit

http://www.linux.org

and check out the article linux 101


You can also use a "search engine", there are numerous articles on linux.

What do you want your modified system to do?

Mac OS-x is built on top of BSD Unix (not Linux).

Windows is not based on C++. The latter is a programming language. Windows was first built on top of DOS---and evolved from there.

As alan_ri says: One step at a time.

try linuxnewbieguide.org. You can getlot of knowledge in here!

Once you've taken everyone else's advice and become more knowledgeable with programming, you might try Linux from Scratch. As the name implies, it allows you to build your own.

Cheers