title: How are Operating Systems "Made"?
body: <p>Creating an OS seems like  a <strong>massive</strong> project.  How would anyone even get started?</p>
  
  <p><strong>For example, when I pop Ubuntu into my drive, how can my computer just <em>run</em> it?</strong>
  (This, I guess, is what I'd really like to know.)</p>
  
  <p>Or, looking at it from another angle, what is the least amount of bytes that could be on a disk and still be "run" as an OS?</p>
  
  <p>(I'm sorry if this is vague.  I just have <em>no idea</em> about this subject, so I can't be very specific.  I pretend to know a fair amount about how computers work, but I'm utterly clueless about this subject.)</p>