GentleOS - A pair of hobby OSes for vintage 32-bit and 16-bit PCs

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Summary

GentleOS/32 and GentleOS/16 are hobby operating systems for vintage 32-bit and 16-bit PCs, providing a platform for tinkering with retro hardware and running graphical apps on bare metal.

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Cached at: 06/08/26, 09:22 AM

luke8086/gentleos32

Source: https://github.com/luke8086/gentleos32

GentleOS/32

A hobby operating system for vintage 32-bit PCs.

Its goal is to provide a simple platform for tinkering with retro hardware and running graphical interactive apps on bare metal.

At minimum, it only requires an i386 CPU, 4MB of RAM, and a VGA display capable of 640x480x16 mode.

By design it’s entirely monolithic, mostly configured at compile time, and only supports standard PC devices: VGA/SVGA, keyboard, PS/2 mouse, serial mouse, PC speaker. The only future plans are bugfixes, optimizations, and adding more apps.

GentleOS/32 has a pure 16-bit spin-off called GentleOS/16, which targets devices as old as 80186.

For details on building and running, see USAGE.md.

Gallery

Attributions

License

Except where otherwise noted, GentleOS/32 is licensed under GPLv2.

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