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Documentation Index

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SilverOS ships a graphical terminal emulator built directly into the desktop shell. It opens as a standard window (640×440 pixels) and provides a command interpreter that can interact with the SilverFS filesystem, query hardware state from the RTC and physical memory manager, and send ICMP packets over the network. The terminal is the primary way to interact with the OS after login.

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Opening the terminal

The terminal can be opened in two ways:
  1. Automatically on login — after user_login() succeeds inside the login window’s key handler, terminal_open() is called immediately so the terminal is ready the moment the desktop becomes interactive.
  2. From the start menu — click the Silver button in the taskbar, then select Terminal.
void terminal_open(void);
terminal_open() checks whether a terminal window already exists (by testing term_window_id against window_get()). If it does, the existing window is focused rather than a second instance being created. If no terminal is open, a fresh window is created, the scroll buffer is cleared, and the ASCII art banner is printed.
After logging in, open the terminal and run cat /home/user/readme.txt as your first command to read the welcome message that desktop_init() wrote at boot.

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Available commands

The function term_process_command dispatches on the command string using strcmp / strncmp. All commands are case-sensitive and lowercase.
CommandUsageDescription
helphelpLists all available commands
clearclearClears the terminal screen
lsls [dir]Lists directory contents with type and size
catcat /path/to/filePrints file contents
echoecho some textPrints text to terminal
mkdirmkdir /path/to/dirCreates a directory
touchtouch /path/to/fileCreates an empty file
writewrite /path/to/file dataWrites text to a file
unameunamePrints SilverOS v0.1.0 x86_64
freefreeShows free physical pages and MB
datedateShows hardware date/time from RTC
ifconfigifconfigShows MAC and IP address of eth0
pingping 10.0.2.2Sends ICMP echo request
If an unknown string is entered, the terminal prints Unknown command: <input>.

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Usage examples

$ ls /
  [DIR]  home
  [DIR]  etc
  [DIR]  tmp

$ cat /etc/hostname
silveros

$ touch /tmp/test.txt
File created

$ write /tmp/test.txt Hello world
Written successfully

$ cat /tmp/test.txt
Hello world

$ free
Free pages: 48221 (188 MB)

$ date
2024-01-15 10:30:42

$ ifconfig
eth0: MAC 52:54:00:12:34:56
      IP  10.0.2.15

$ ping 10.0.2.2
Ping request sent (check serial for replies)

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Terminal internals

The terminal is implemented entirely inside desktop/desktop.c. Its state is held in a set of static variables:
VariableType / SizePurpose
term_lineschar[256][81]256-line scroll buffer, each line up to 80 chars
term_line_countintNumber of lines currently in the buffer
term_inputchar[256]Current input line being typed
term_input_lenintLength of term_input
term_window_idintWM window ID of the terminal (-1 if closed)
Rendering — term_draw is registered as the window’s draw callback and is called every frame:
  1. The content area is filled with RGB(15, 15, 25) (near-black).
  2. visible_lines = content_height / FONT_HEIGHT determines how many lines fit. The font is 8×16 pixels (FONT_HEIGHT = 16).
  3. Lines are rendered from term_lines[start] to term_lines[term_line_count - 1], where start is adjusted so the most recent lines always fill the bottom of the window.
  4. The prompt $ is drawn in green (RGB(100, 200, 120)); the input text is in light grey (RGB(210, 215, 225)).
  5. A blinking cursor is drawn at the end of the input text using (timer_get_ticks() / 500) % 2 to toggle visibility at roughly 1 Hz.
Scroll buffer overflow — when term_line_count reaches 256, term_add_line shifts all lines up by one and writes the new line at index 255, effectively discarding the oldest line. Input handling — term_key_handler is the registered key callback. Printable ASCII characters (0x20–0x7E) are appended to term_input. KEY_BACKSPACE (0x08) or 0x7F removes the last character. KEY_ENTER (0x0A) echoes $ <input> to the scroll buffer, passes the input to term_process_command, then clears the input buffer.

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File Browser

The desktop also ships a graphical file browser, accessible from the start menu: 
void file_browser_open(const char *path);
Calling file_browser_open("/") opens a 500×350-pixel window showing the contents of the given path. Like terminal_open(), if a file browser window is already open it navigates to the new path instead of creating a duplicate. Inside the browser:
  • Directories are shown with a yellow-gold icon and name; files show a white icon, name, and byte size on the right.
  • Single-click selects an entry (highlighted in blue).
  • Double-click (simulated by clicking an already-selected entry) navigates into a directory.
  • The Back button in the toolbar strips the last path component and navigates up. At the root (/), the Back button is a no-op.
  • The window title updates dynamically to reflect the current path: File Browser - /home/user.
The ping command only sends the ICMP echo request via icmp_send_echo_request(). ICMP replies are logged to the serial port, not to the graphical terminal. Run QEMU with -serial stdio to see reply output in the host terminal.

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