This is a fun problem, but it's definitely difficult, I think. The Project Euler version of this problem (which, granted, is a bit more difficult) has been up for almost 5 years, but has only been solved by 800+ people.
Ok so what's the kernel?
Are we going bsd or linux or legacy DOS or building our own?
What are we compiling for?
Is this a learning tool or are we building a whole new os?
I'm legitimately curious, do we want to build a git on this?
Do we want to run this natively or in a browser?
Now I'm really excited this could be cool.
Also you should check out linux from scratch if this is interesting to you.
edit* Also I think this might be a little more difficult than intermediary.
Is there any use in posting intermediate or hard problems? I do encouter some of those from time to time. Like i've been tempted to post a variation on this one, which brings me to related question.
When reposting an existing problem, i feel inclined to rephrase to problem slightly, in order not to compremise the sites that hold them. This has as a disadvantage that the quality can erode. To what extend is there room for reposts? To what extend do you prefer rewrites above the primary source? (offcourse i wouldn't repost before solving it myself).
Thanks for keeping the flame on.