Mezzano – An operating system written in Common Lisp • Hacker News Board

Re: Mezzano – An operating system written in Common Lisp

#21

Post by zeveb » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 2:44 PM UTC

catnaroek wrote: post #13

informatimago wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically, the point of lisp OSes, is that they allow you to seamlessly write code at all layers, from down into the darkest bowels of the system, thru and up to the highest level application scripting, all in a single integrated language and libraries and frameworks. You don't have to reboot a machine just because you make a patch to the kernel, and at the same time, you can patch the system using the same high leve…

> Instead, if your system is written in Lisp, then you can directly pass lisp objects from one lisp application to another lisp application, and there's no need to serialize/deserialize, to parse or otherwise mangle the data: you just have lisp objects and you can use them directly. You can pass closures (which enclose the lisp object data along with the lisp functions needed to process them). So, if I understand cor…

Well, if you're running on a typical processor than any process can use pointer arithmetic to access memory, so you still need some sort of low-level memory protection mechanism.

On some hypothetical Lisp/high-level-language processor, that needn't be the case, of course, but I honestly don't think we'll ever see something like that again.

Re: Mezzano – An operating system written in Common Lisp

#22

Post by qwertyuiop924 » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 2:46 PM UTC

vertex-four wrote: post #19

qwertyuiop924 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume so: The only real issue would be BIOS compatability, so it might take some work, but it should be possible.

Well, the main issue would be it requires a specific network card to talk to its file server.

Ah, missed that. Yep.

I think USB, etc. are standard enough, so that should be it.

With Intel motherboard, and Intel integrated networking, it could probably run in my machine.

Wait. Graphics. %$&#!.

Re: Mezzano – An operating system written in Common Lisp

#23

Post by catnaroek » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 2:52 PM UTC

parenthephobia wrote: post #20

catnaroek wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Instead, if your system is written in Lisp, then you can directly pass lisp objects from one lisp application to another lisp application, and there's no need to serialize/deserialize, to parse or otherwise mangle the data: you just have lisp objects and you can use them directly. You can pass closures (which enclose the lisp object data along with the lisp functions needed to process them). So, if I understand cor…

From what I can tell looking at the code, Mezzano doesn't have processes, just threads. There's no distinction between the kernel and user-space. Whilst convenient, it isn't an unqualified good. Bugs in any part of the system have the potential to catastrophically break everything. It's also terrible for security. |Without the notion of a distinct kernel - or "unsafe" code that only privileged users can compile or lo…

> From what I can tell looking at the code, Mezzano doesn't have processes, just threads.

I'd rather there were no distinction between processes and threads. It's artificial. I want to live in a world where processes cooperate to produce useful results for the user, rather than assume other processes are out there to corrupt their data. If there's any memory protection, I'd rather it be a compile-time, rather than runtime check.

> Bugs in any part of the system have the potential to catastrophically break everything. It's also terrible for security.

Proof-carrying code seems like a better solution than memory protection.

> Another issue with having a single global environment backing everything is that you can't easily experiment with changing built-in Lisp functionality without immediately crashing the system.

To be honest, I'm not so interested in “experimentation”. (I'm culturally not a Lisper. I like thinking and getting things right before I write code.) I just think concurrency would be a lot simpler if you could pass objects directly between programs written by different people.

Re: Mezzano – An operating system written in Common Lisp

#24

Post by catnaroek » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 2:55 PM UTC

zeveb wrote: post #21

catnaroek wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Instead, if your system is written in Lisp, then you can directly pass lisp objects from one lisp application to another lisp application, and there's no need to serialize/deserialize, to parse or otherwise mangle the data: you just have lisp objects and you can use them directly. You can pass closures (which enclose the lisp object data along with the lisp functions needed to process them). So, if I understand cor…

Well, if you're running on a typical processor than any process can use pointer arithmetic to access memory, so you still need some sort of low-level memory protection mechanism. On some hypothetical Lisp/high-level-language processor, that needn't be the case, of course, but I honestly don't think we'll ever see something like that again.

> than any process can use pointer arithmetic to access memory,

The damage this can potentially cause can be prevented using proof-carrying code.

Re: Mezzano – An operating system written in Common Lisp

#25

Post by zeveb » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 3:01 PM UTC

What'll be really awesome is once it's possible to run SBCL on Mezzano (or would it be Mezzano in SBCL?), to take advantage of all the optimisations SBCL offers.

Re: Mezzano – An operating system written in Common Lisp

#26

Post by johnhattan » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 3:42 PM UTC

I hope there'll be a driver for the Symbolics keyboard. I cannot be productive without a "meta", "super", and "hyper" key.

Re: Mezzano – An operating system written in Common Lisp

#27

Post by dpc_pw » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 3:58 PM UTC

Wouldn't it be easier to port emacs to common lisp?

Hmm... Actually, probably not.

Re: Mezzano – An operating system written in Common Lisp

#28

Post by erikj » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 4:14 PM UTC

Wow, this is pretty impressive. The last time I checked its progress, it was very basic. Now it even has a working GUI with transparency! I should find some time to tinker with it.

Re: Mezzano – An operating system written in Common Lisp

#29

Post by ComodoHacker » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 4:17 PM UTC

rjsw wrote: post #3

spaceheeder wrote: post #2

One of my favorite things to learn when I come across any experimental OS is: "why?" Redox wants to do microkernel architecture The Right Way, and wants to use a guaranteed memory-and-type safe language (Rust). ReactOS wants to create a drop-in replacement for Windows that not only supports older Windows programs, but also Windows-compatible device drivers. MenuetOS wants to build something approximating the OS exper…

> So: why Mezzano? One way to think of it is as a Lisp Machine [1] using an x86 CPU. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisp_machine

Thank you for the link! Turns out I completely missed these pages of computing history.

Re: Mezzano – An operating system written in Common Lisp

#30

Post by abecedarius » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 5:09 PM UTC

spaceheeder wrote: post #2

One of my favorite things to learn when I come across any experimental OS is: "why?" Redox wants to do microkernel architecture The Right Way, and wants to use a guaranteed memory-and-type safe language (Rust). ReactOS wants to create a drop-in replacement for Windows that not only supports older Windows programs, but also Windows-compatible device drivers. MenuetOS wants to build something approximating the OS exper…

> Redox wants to do microkernel architecture The Right Way

What is the Right Way? I couldn't find their take on that in 5 minutes on their website; this seems closest: https://doc.redox-os.org/book/introduction/why_redox.html