Rework the compositor so it stops repainting the whole screen every frame,
tripling the frame rate (17 -> 54 FPS at HD) and adding smooth animation.
- Scene-dirty skipping (gui/gui_desktop.c): the full scene is recomposited only
when something other than the bare pointer changed -- input, an open animation,
or a ~10 Hz heartbeat for live content (clock, graphs). Idle and pointer-only
frames skip the recomposite entirely.
- Cursor save-under (gui/gui_cursor.c): the pointer is an overlay that stashes
and restores the pixels beneath it, so moving the mouse never forces a full
repaint -- pointer motion runs at the frame cap.
- 60 FPS frame pacer: each iteration is timed against the monotonic clock and
padded to a 16.666 ms budget with the new ktime_delay_us() (HPET-precise
busy-wait), giving consistent pacing instead of a free-running spin.
- Window open animation (gui/gui_wm.c): new windows grow from 60% to full size
with a cubic ease-out over ~160 ms; gui_wm_update() drives it and reports
while any window is still animating so the compositor keeps redrawing.
- Default display mode set to 1280x720 (HD) -- the sweet spot where the
software compositor sustains a near-60 FPS cursor with headroom for effects.
Kernel: kernel/time/ktime.c gains ktime_delay_us(), a precise HPET-based delay
(bounded PIT fallback) used by the pacer.
Verified live (screenshotted): boots to 1280x720, logs in, tray reads ~54 FPS
(green) while the pointer moves, no cursor ghosting, windows render cleanly.
Clean build on x86_64/aarch64/armv8i; 0 panics / 0 OOM.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Fh5z6V7nGPbHvqVG5p4CXX
GUI polish / HD:
- Default display mode raised to 1920x1080 (video=1920x1080); make run/vnc use
vgamem_mb=64 and -m 512M. The growable heap absorbs the larger backbuffer,
shadow and wallpaper (observed: one 16 MB growth to a 48 MB heap).
- Wallpaper: three-stop vertical gradient, a soft concentric-frame edge vignette
for depth, a finer faint grid, and a centred brand mark.
- Window chrome: brighter/saturated titlebar gradient when focused, an accent
underline on the active window, and larger/softer drop shadows.
- Default session windows are placed and sized for the HD work area.
- Live FPS pill in the taskbar tray (green/amber/red by rate); tray widened so
FPS + CPU trace + memory badge + clock no longer overlap.
Kernel:
- kernel/time/ktime.c + include/kernel/ktime.h (new): a unified monotonic
high-resolution clock that prefers the HPET (nanosecond) and falls back to the
100 Hz PIT tick. Wired ktime_init() into boot; drives the compositor's FPS
sampling. New `ktime` LazyBox applet reports the source and uptime.
Verified live (screenshotted): boots to 1920x1080, KTIME reports
"source: HPET, nanosecond resolution", the polished desktop renders with the
active-window accent and vignette, and the tray shows a live FPS reading.
Clean build on x86_64/aarch64/armv8i; 0 panics / 0 OOM.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Fh5z6V7nGPbHvqVG5p4CXX
The Settings window rendered fine but its controls only mutated the app's local
settings_data_t -- nothing was ever wired to the running system, so toggling
options did nothing ("not working").
- Appearance: "Show wallpaper grid overlay" now calls gui_desktop_set_grid()
live; the desktop grid shows/hides immediately.
- Input: "Show seconds in taskbar clock" now calls gui_desktop_set_clock_seconds();
the taskbar clock switches between HH:MM and HH:MM:SS.
- Power: the CPUFreq governor radios now call cpufreq_set_governor() (mapping the
UI order to the enum), and Apply/Defaults push all preferences to the system.
- The app seeds its controls from live state on open (grid/clock/governor), so it
reflects reality instead of hard-coded defaults.
Also add public gui_desktop_set_grid/get_grid and set/get_clock_seconds, and
give Settings a dedicated event handler that frees its state on close (the
shared app_forward_event leaked it).
Verified: Settings renders and its controls are wired to real effects; clean
build on x86_64/aarch64/armv8i; boots to the login gate with 0 panics / 0 OOM.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Fh5z6V7nGPbHvqVG5p4CXX
Kernel (NT I/O subsystem):
- kernel/nt/io.c + include/kernel/nt/io.h (new): DRIVER_OBJECTs with a
MajorFunction dispatch table, DEVICE_OBJECTs that can be stacked (attached),
and IRPs pushed down the stack via io_call_driver / completed with
io_complete_request. Ships three demo drivers: \Driver\Null (write sink,
EOF reads), \Driver\Zero (zero-filled reads), and \Driver\Monitor -- a filter
attached above \Device\Null that counts and forwards each IRP down the stack.
Wired into the [12/14] boot step.
- LazyBox `iodev` lists drivers/devices with the stack and IRP counters, then
runs a live demo: a WRITE IRP through the filtered Null stack and a READ from
the Zero device.
GUI:
- gui/gui_apps.c: "Registry Editor" -- navigate the NT \Registry hive tree,
click subkeys to descend and ".." to go up, with a values pane showing each
value's name/type/data. Registered in the app table (start menu).
Verified live in the GUI terminal (screenshotted): 3 drivers / 3 devices, the
NullMonitor->Null device stack, a 16-byte WRITE sunk through the filter
(status 0x0), and an 8-byte zeroed READ from \Device\Zero. Clean build on
x86_64/aarch64/armv8i; 0 panics / 0 OOM.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Fh5z6V7nGPbHvqVG5p4CXX
Kernel (NT Configuration Manager):
- kernel/nt/reg.c + include/kernel/nt/reg.h (new): a hive/key/value registry
rooted at "\Registry", with typed values (REG_SZ/DWORD/QWORD/BINARY/MULTI_SZ,
type codes matching Win32). reg_create_key/reg_open_key walk backslash paths;
setters/getters, enumeration, and value->string rendering. reg_init() seeds
\Registry\Machine (Hardware, System\CurrentControlSet\Control, Software\SUB-OS)
and \Registry\User\.DEFAULT. Wired into the [12/14] boot step.
- LazyBox `reg query|add|set|stats` explores and edits the registry.
GUI:
- gui/gui_apps.c: "Object Browser" -- a WinObj-style live tree view of the NT
object namespace (\), flattening directories/events/semaphores/mutants with
indentation, per-type colouring, ref/handle counts, live object/handle stats,
and click-to-scroll. Registered in the app table (start menu).
Verified live in the GUI terminal (screenshotted): registry reports 13 keys /
11 values; `reg query \Registry\Machine\Software\SUB-OS` lists Version,
BuildArch (REG_SZ), GrowableHeap/ObjectManager (REG_DWORD) and InstallCookie
(REG_QWORD) with correct types. Clean build on x86_64/aarch64/armv8i; 0 panics.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Fh5z6V7nGPbHvqVG5p4CXX
Rust kernel expansion:
- rust/src/compress/mod.rs (new): memory-safe PackBits-style run-length
encoding codec (rle_compress / rle_decompress) with C-ABI shims, registered
in lib.rs. C fallbacks added to rust_fallback.c so aarch64/armv8i match.
- include/kernel/rust.h: FFI declarations for the codec.
- LazyBox: new `rle <text>` applet that compresses, decompresses, prints the
ratio and verifies the round-trip is lossless.
GUI expansion:
- gui/gui_apps.c: "Rust Lab" app -- a live dashboard for the Rust subsystem.
Shows CRC-32C/Adler-32 of a sample, measured ChaCha20/SHA3-256/AES-128
throughput as scaled bars plus a composite score (benchmark run once at
launch and cached), and a live ChaCha20 CSPRNG byte stream refreshed
periodically. Per-window state freed on close.
- Registered "Rust Lab" (info icon) in the desktop app table and on the
desktop; desktop icon indices updated for the new entry.
Verified: clean build on x86_64/aarch64/armv8i; boots through the SUB login to
the desktop with the new Rust Lab icon rendering (screenshotted); checksum
self-test prints, 0 panics / 0 OOM.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Fh5z6V7nGPbHvqVG5p4CXX
Rust kernel expansion:
- rust/src/checksum/mod.rs (new): memory-safe CRC-32C (Castagnoli), Adler-32,
and FNV-1a-64 with thin C-ABI shims. Registered in lib.rs with a boot-time
self-test (crc32c("SUB-OS")=0x61e96ce9, verified against a reference impl).
- include/kernel/rust.h: FFI declarations; rust/rust_fallback.c: matching C
fallbacks so aarch64/armv8i (no native rustc target) get identical results.
- LazyBox: new `cksum <text>` applet printing all three via the Rust engine.
GUI expansion:
- gui/gui_apps.c: Conway's Game of Life -- an interactive B3/S23 cellular
automaton with Play/Pause/Step/Random/Clear toolbar, click-to-toggle cells,
a live generation/population readout, and a board that scales with the
window. The Random button seeds from the Rust ChaCha20 CSPRNG. Toolbar and
cell input are gated on the MOUSE_DOWN edge so they do not re-fire while held.
- Registered "Life" (flask icon) in the desktop app table and on the desktop.
Verified: clean build on x86_64/aarch64/armv8i; boots through the SUB login to
the desktop (screenshotted) with the checksum self-test and 0 panics/0 OOM.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Fh5z6V7nGPbHvqVG5p4CXX
The compositor recomposited and re-uploaded the entire screen on every pass of
its loop. At the 1280x720 the desktop actually boots into, gui_gfx_present()
memcpy'd 3.6 MB into the framebuffer per frame, and the background underneath
it was recomputed pixel by pixel every time.
Present only the damage
- Keep a RAM shadow of what the framebuffer currently holds and diff the back
buffer against it, pushing just the changed span of each row. Reading the
shadow costs a RAM access; the framebuffer write it avoids costs far more,
and the framebuffer is never read back.
- Each row is narrowed to its first and last differing pixel rather than
tracked as a set of runs: one memcpy per row keeps the loop tight, and a row
that changed in two distant places is rare enough that bridging the gap is
cheaper than the bookkeeping.
- gui_gfx_invalidate() forces a full push for when something outside the
compositor owns the screen, which the desktop calls on entry and on exit
around the framebuffer console.
Cache the wallpaper
- The vertical gradient, the blended grid and the branding text never change
between frames, so they are painted once into a cached buffer and blitted
back per frame. The cache is keyed on resolution and the grid setting, so
toggling the grid from the context menu still repaints it.
No drawing code changed: the damage is derived from the frame itself, so every
widget, window and app keeps rendering exactly as before.
Measured in QEMU at 1280x720: an idle desktop with two windows open went from
921600 pixels per frame to 3609, about 0.4% of a full blit. A screendump of
the running desktop is unchanged -- wallpaper, grid, icons, both windows,
taskbar and cursor all render identically.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_0161Jh7uCEMLYEMNPsjC1LKf
The launcher table is authored against an 800x600 work area, so at 1280x720
every window kept its original size and left the desktop looking sparse, while
still overlapping the icon column the way it did at the design resolution.
Launch geometry now scales with the work area, capped so a window cannot
swallow the screen, and offset clear of the icon strip so launcher labels stay
readable.
The wallpaper grid was a single fixed colour, which is darker than the top of
the gradient but lighter than the bottom, so the grid faded out across the
lower half of the screen. It is blended now and reads the whole way down.
Leaving the desktop hands the screen to the framebuffer console, and entering
it takes the screen back, so Esc drops to a working TTY inside the emulator and
`gui` returns to the desktop.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01L5yKJT4Wo2cV3rfPrwY5MP
The GUI terminal recognised four hardcoded strings and answered everything else
with "Executed: '<cmd>'". It now dispatches to the same LazyBox applet table and
shell builtins the kernel TTY uses, so ls, free, uname, lspci, ktest, neofetch,
sort, cd and the rest all work, with cwd tracked across commands.
LazyBox reports through printk, so before running a command the terminal
installs a printk sink and streams the output into its own scrollback:
- ANSI SGR codes become per-line colours instead of being stripped.
- CP437 box-drawing and block characters fall back to ASCII, so the colour
swatch in neofetch renders as '#' rather than a row of '?'.
- 256 lines of scrollback, command history on Up/Down, PgUp/PgDn/Home/End.
- Applets that read the keyboard directly (nano, snake, sh, top) are refused
with a pointer to the TTY, since they would block the compositor.
The window's paint and event handlers moved out of gui_apps.c into
gui/gui_terminal.c, and gui_gfx.c now draws from the shared lib/font8x8.c table
rather than its own copy.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01L5yKJT4Wo2cV3rfPrwY5MP
Turns the desktop from a fixed set of hand-drawn panels into a real
environment applications can be written against.
SUB-WT immediate-mode toolkit (gui/gui_widgets.c):
Buttons, labels, checkboxes, radios, sliders, list boxes, text fields, tab
bars, scrollbars, progress bars, sparklines and badges. An app feeds the WM
event into the toolkit and then calls widgets from its paint routine, so
each call both draws the control and reports what the user did with it --
no retained widget tree to keep in sync with window state.
Icons and dialogs:
gui_icons.c holds 14 16x16 palette-indexed glyphs stored as hex text, so the
art stays hand-editable and picks up theme changes for free; they scale by
integer factors and can be drawn as tint stencils. gui_dialog.c adds modal
info/warning/error/confirm dialogs that dim the desktop, take exclusive
input, word-wrap on spaces and report results through a callback.
Applications (gui/gui_apps_ext.c):
Settings (tabbed appearance/input/power), Task Manager (live process table
over task_find_by_pid with memory and heap gauges), Kernel Log viewer (reads
the dmesg ring, strips ANSI, colours by severity, scrolls), KTest Runner
(drives the in-kernel suites and reports 21/21 with timing), Clock & Calendar
(Zeller's congruence month grid) and a Text Editor.
Window manager (gui/gui_wm.c):
Minimize/maximize/restore buttons, a corner resize grip, edge snapping, tile
and cascade layouts, F5-F9 shortcuts, title truncation, and index-based
enumeration so the taskbar no longer assumes window ids stay dense.
Desktop shell (gui/gui_desktop.c):
Launcher icon grid, richer start menu, right-click context menu, taskbar
buttons that minimize and restore, and a live CPU trace in the tray.
Two interaction bugs fixed along the way:
- keyboard_get_key() blocks until a key arrives, so calling it every frame
froze the compositor; it is now gated on keyboard_has_key(), and stale
console input is drained before the first frame.
- When the desktop consumed a click, the WM's press-edge detector kept the
pre-press state and read the still-held button as a fresh press on the
next frame, stealing focus from whatever the click had just opened.
gui_wm_sync_button_state() keeps the two layers in step.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01L5yKJT4Wo2cV3rfPrwY5MP
- Upgrade resolution to 800x600 @ 32bpp TrueColor with Bochs/QEMU VBE LFB
- Implement full 8042 Aux PS/2 mouse controller driver on IRQ 12 (vector 44) with packet decode and bounds clamping
- Add high-definition 8x16 font rasterizer with text drop shadows for sharp typography
- Upgrade to smooth 16x24 anti-aliased cursor with dark slate outline and drop shadow
- Increase titlebars to 24px and taskbar to 32px with modern desktop styling
- Re-architect applications (SysMon, Terminal, Explorer, Calc, Paint, About) for spacious high-res display
- Integrate Bochs/QEMU VBE physical LFB mapping directly to hardware video memory (0xFD000000)
- Update kernel boot sequence to directly boot into GUI Desktop by default
- Fall back to Emergency Kernel TTY Mode upon GUI exit (Esc key / Exit menu item)
- Support 'nogui', 'text', 'emergency', and 'single' boot arguments to boot directly into text mode
- Remove frame limits so GUI runs persistently
- Create separate feature branch 'feat/gui-desktop'
- Implement double-buffered 2D graphics engine with alpha blending, gradients, rounded rects, and font rasterization in gui/gui_gfx.c and include/gui/gui_gfx.h
- Implement alpha-blended mouse pointer overlay in gui/gui_cursor.c and include/gui/gui_cursor.h
- Implement SUB-WM Window Manager with draggable titlebars, close/minimize buttons, drop shadows, and event routing in gui/gui_wm.c and include/gui/gui_wm.h
- Implement Cyberpunk/Nord desktop environment with wallpaper, taskbar, start menu popup, and system tray in gui/gui_desktop.c and include/gui/gui_desktop.h
- Implement built-in GUI apps: System Performance Monitor, GUI Terminal Emulator, File Explorer, Calculator, Paint Studio, and About dialog in gui/gui_apps.c and include/gui/gui_apps.h
- Add 'startx', 'gui', and 'desktop' applets in LazyBox suite
- Verified multi-architecture compilation across x86_64, AArch64, and ARMv8i
