Bare-metal lab
FreeBare-metal microkernel OS development examples for Raspberry Pi (ARMv6)
FreeFree tier
About Bare-metal lab
A collection of bare-metal programming examples for Raspberry Pi (ARMv6) that covers microkernel OS development. Includes labs for a simple hello world, MMU initialization, ARM interrupt handling, buddy system memory allocation, and a minimal microkernel (mimiOS) featuring system calls, round-robin scheduling, and process fork. Also includes a merged example (pi-baremetal) combining MMU, interrupts, mailbox, and ATAGs with process management. Designed for learning low-level ARM embedded programming and OS concepts.
Key Features
Bare-metal hello world example
MMU initialization and configuration
ARM interrupt handling example
Buddy system memory allocation implementation
Microkernel with system calls, round-robin scheduling, and process fork
Merged example combining MMU, interrupts, mailbox, ATAGs, and process management
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Provides practical, hands-on examples for core bare-metal topics
- Covers MMU, interrupts, memory allocation, and a simple microkernel in one repository
- Includes merged code from multiple community examples for richer functionality
- Open source with permissive Creative Commons license
- Useful for self-study of operating system fundamentals on real hardware
Cons
- Limited documentation beyond brief README descriptions; relies on external blog for details
- Targets older Raspberry Pi (ARMv6) and may not work on newer models without adaptation
- Examples are basic and may not cover advanced topics like device drivers or filesystems
- Requires prior knowledge of ARM assembly and embedded development
Best For
Learning ARMv6 bare-metal programmingExperimentation with OS kernel concepts such as scheduling and memory managementEmbedded systems education and hobbyist projects on Raspberry PiReference for implementing low-level hardware initialization on ARM
FAQ
What is included in this repository?
It contains several bare-metal labs: hello1 (hello world), labMMU (MMU initialization), labInterrupt (ARM interrupt handling), labMem (buddy system memory allocation), mimiOS (system calls, scheduling, process fork), and pi-baremetal (merged examples with MMU, interrupts, mailbox, ATAGs, and process management).
What board is this for?
Raspberry Pi with ARMv6 processor, typically the original Raspberry Pi 1 models.
Is there additional documentation?
The author's blog is referenced at http://karosesblog.blogspot.tw/ for more details.