Looking for software to aid in writing my own o/s
 

I want to write my own o/s (just for fun) and i want to code it under linux. The problem is that i have only one computer and turning linux off to test the o/s, then turning it on again would take alot of time. So im looking for some software that would emulate a 386 so i could test the code will still running linux. I dont know if this software exists or not, but i figured if it does exist, it exists under linux.

Anything would help, thanks.

vmware could "emulate" an OS for you. It actually starts off emulating a BIOS start, then you would load your OS from there.

HTH

There's also BOCHS, that aims to do pretty much the same thing, but differently. I would say that VMWare is probably easier to use, but bochs has the advantage of being open, so should you need to know anything specific about how the virtual computer would interact with your new os, you can.

I too think VMware is best for this, but it costs $$$ but i think it's worth it. You can also request a 30 day trial key and then download VMware and use it for Doh! 30 days free.
I found that Bochs is unstable but it might be just my bad configuration of it.
I also heard about Plex86 but i have no idea how it works or if its good, so i too suggest VMware.
Hope that helps

-NSKL

I think that all three work in similar ways. I know that VMWare emulates that hardware of an i386 box, and I believe that Plex86 does the same (since it's also referred to as FreeMWare...), but I think that Bochs attempts to translate the instructions to whatever system it's pretenting to be... which poses the question: Why aren't there any non-x86 Bochsen around?