It looks like this is a closed binary blob. Disappointing, since I'm curious to see what exactly it does differently.
I'm also not entirely sure why I would want to use this over Linux, from reading the website.
Show HN: Minoca OS – A new lightweight kernel, completely from scratch
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Re: Show HN: Minoca OS – A new lightweight kernel, completely from scratch
#12The "Product" page gives a much better explanation of why we should care then the linked "Download" page.
Re: Show HN: Minoca OS – A new lightweight kernel, completely from scratch
#13Re: Show HN: Minoca OS – A new lightweight kernel, completely from scratch
#14It looks neat, but is this something I'd use a RPi as an overpowered arduino for? What does this offer?
Re: Show HN: Minoca OS – A new lightweight kernel, completely from scratch
#15Cool! Can you describe a user who would see this as a perfect fit?
We're systems people, so we can help folks building new hardware devices with tasks like bring-up and sustained support. There's a stable kernel API, which makes component level updates within the kernel possible.
Re: Show HN: Minoca OS – A new lightweight kernel, completely from scratch
#16Can it provide any real-time guarantees? The main reason why I would change OS on the Raspberry Pi 3 is to get real-time behavior.
Re: Show HN: Minoca OS – A new lightweight kernel, completely from scratch
#17It looks neat, but is this something I'd use a RPi as an overpowered arduino for? What does this offer?
Yes, you could use Minoca to manage GPIO and other low level hardware. One area where we're working to excel is power management. There's so little in the OS that we're able to go very idle, and stay there for long periods. Another area we're focused on is component level servicing: being able to update components within the kernel while maintaining a high degree of stability.
To user mode we'd like to present a largely compatible interface, while in the kernel we want to innovate using new designs and a clean slate.
Re: Show HN: Minoca OS – A new lightweight kernel, completely from scratch
#18Can it provide any real-time guarantees? The main reason why I would change OS on the Raspberry Pi 3 is to get real-time behavior.
Not at the moment, but our interrupt overhead and number of background tasks is so low it's something we're thinking about. Is there a specific scenario you're trying to enable?
Re: Show HN: Minoca OS – A new lightweight kernel, completely from scratch
#19Is this a commercial product? If so, what's your business model? This looks really neat by the way.
Just a quick review of the site - the "Product" page - shows a lite version and a pro. Lite has debugging symbols built in that can't be stripped. It is compiled at a lower optimization level than pro. It says for Access to Source: Lite - Limited, Pro - Unlimited Not sure what that means though, I didn't dig very far. Found the above here: http://www.minocacorp.com/product/ - scroll down a bit to find the product com…
(emphasis mine):
> It says for Access to Source: Lite - Limited, Pro - Unlimited
In the software world I'd consider anything less than BSD/MIT licensed source code limited.
Re: Show HN: Minoca OS – A new lightweight kernel, completely from scratch
#20What's the hardware compatibility like? If you're open to it, there is a market for something that will boot with the bare minimum non-specialized generic drivers on all hardware into a shell or some form of UI.