From Nothing To Hello World

This page explains the most quick way to test a program on Redox, this tutorial don't build Redox from source.

In this example we will use a "Hello World" program written in Rust.

  • Download the script to bootstrap Podman and download the Redox build system
curl -sf https://gitlab.redox-os.org/redox-os/redox/raw/master/podman_bootstrap.sh -o podman_bootstrap.sh
  • Execute the downloaded script
time bash -e podman_bootstrap.sh
  • Enable the Rust toolchain on the current shell
source ~/.cargo/env
  • Change the active directory to the Redox build system directory
cd ~/tryredox/redox
  • Create the .config file and add the REPO_BINARY environment variable to enable the binary-mode
echo "REPO_BINARY?=1" >> .config
  • Create the hello-world recipe folder
mkdir cookbook/recipes/other/hello-world
  • Create the source folder of the recipe
mkdir cookbook/recipes/other/hello-world/source
  • Change the active directory to the source folder
cd cookbook/recipes/other/hello-world/source
  • Create a Cargo project with the "Hello World" string
cargo init --name="hello-world"
  • Create the hello-world recipe configuration
nano cookbook/recipes/other/hello-world/recipe.toml
  • Add the recipe configuration text
[source]
path = "/source"
[build]
template = "cargo"
  • Open the default filesystem configuration file at config/x86_64/desktop.toml with your text editor and add the hello-world recipe, the following code block show where you need to edit.
[packages]
# Add the item below
hello-world = {}
  • Build the Hello World program and the Redox image
time make r.hello-world image
  • Start the Redox VM without a GUI
make qemu gpu=no

In the "redox login" screen write "user" as user name and press Enter.

  • Run the "Hello World" program
helloworld
  • Power off the Redox VM
sudo shutdown