Building a QNX 7 Desktop • Hacker News Board

Re: Building a QNX 7 Desktop

#31

Post by digi_owl » Sun, Apr 30, 2017, 10:35 AM UTC

geocar wrote: post #28

vbezhenar wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think, you could do that easily using ssh with Linux. program1 | ssh server1 program 2 | ssh server2 program3

It's not exactly because ssh can't forward `/dev/ttyS0` It takes more than someone just adding a special adapter to produce such an interface, because you also have to change all of the modem applications that consume the `/dev/ttyS0` interface to also consume the unix-domain or TCP-based interface. Meanwhile with Qnet, an application simply goes open("/net/node1/dev/ser1") and gets the modem attached to node1. Plan9…

Would not surprise me if the GNOME people find a way to replicate that using dbus and their VT backend.

Re: Building a QNX 7 Desktop

#32

Post by digi_owl » Sun, Apr 30, 2017, 10:38 AM UTC

slobotron wrote: post #4

Nice work! Very tempted to try it out on a spare machine. Sure brings back memories of the fully functional QNX desktop that fit on a single 1.44MB floppy! [0] Tangent: It's a shame that Blackberry hasn't captured more of mobile phone market with the QNX based BB OS10 - I got myself a BlackBerry Passport couple months ago and find it is a great daily driver for my needs. Square screen (1400x1400) and physical keyboar…

When not even MS could muscle their way back in after burning their PocketPC bridge, BB didn't stand much of a chance.

Re: Building a QNX 7 Desktop

#33

Post by frik » Sun, Apr 30, 2017, 10:54 AM UTC

digi_owl wrote: post #31

geocar wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not exactly because ssh can't forward `/dev/ttyS0` It takes more than someone just adding a special adapter to produce such an interface, because you also have to change all of the modem applications that consume the `/dev/ttyS0` interface to also consume the unix-domain or TCP-based interface. Meanwhile with Qnet, an application simply goes open("/net/node1/dev/ser1") and gets the modem attached to node1. Plan9…

Would not surprise me if the GNOME people find a way to replicate that using dbus and their VT backend.

Oh my... dbus something like OLE2/ActiveX, just 10 years too late and full of XML.

Re: Building a QNX 7 Desktop

#34

Post by frik » Sun, Apr 30, 2017, 10:59 AM UTC

Frenchgeek wrote: post #25

shmerl wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's what home routers and similar devices ought to be running instead of Linux. The bummer is that it's not FOSS.

Funny there doesn't seem to be an OSS attempt of something like it... ( Or my google-fu is weak )

Google Fuchsia is a capability-based, real-time operating system (RTOS) being developed by Google.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Fuchsia

15 years ago I waited for GNU Hurd, but now I am very interested how Google Fuchsia turns out. What I read it shapes up nicely, and I can imagine we all will use it in near future instead of Windows and other binary blob legacy operating systems; it might also replace Linux as Android kernel - but that is still just speculation.

Re: Building a QNX 7 Desktop

#35

Post by RandomBK » Sun, Apr 30, 2017, 11:04 AM UTC

icc97 wrote: post #30

I suggest adding 'Blackberry' to the title, will save all the people clicking through who don't know what QNX is

QNX had a vibrant life and strong name recognition in its field pre-acquisition, and the BB acquision hasn't really changed that. It still operates under its own name. Those in the target industry (real-time OS) would know who QNX is without tying in Blackberry.

Re: Building a QNX 7 Desktop

#36

Post by pavlov » Sun, Apr 30, 2017, 11:05 AM UTC

There was a time 20 years ago when QNX was to be the foundation of the next-generation Amiga.

Gateway, a PC clone vendor, had acquired the rights to the Amiga brand and technology in early 1997. The company wanted to expand outside the Wintel space, and Amiga still had major brand recognition in Europe. The new Amiga would be a PowerPC-based consumer computer built by Gateway and equipped with the QNX operating system.

It didn't work out, of course -- such was the curse of the Amiga. Here's an account with some more details of what happened:

http://www.trollaxor.com/2005/06/how-qnx-failed-amiga.html

Re: Building a QNX 7 Desktop

#37

Post by swiley » Sun, Apr 30, 2017, 11:18 AM UTC

geocar wrote: post #28

vbezhenar wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think, you could do that easily using ssh with Linux. program1 | ssh server1 program 2 | ssh server2 program3

It's not exactly because ssh can't forward `/dev/ttyS0` It takes more than someone just adding a special adapter to produce such an interface, because you also have to change all of the modem applications that consume the `/dev/ttyS0` interface to also consume the unix-domain or TCP-based interface. Meanwhile with Qnet, an application simply goes open("/net/node1/dev/ser1") and gets the modem attached to node1. Plan9…

Linux has 9p2000 support, I've never heard of people actually using it to export devices over the network though. Fuse also has support for ioctls and other weirdness so it's not impossible for something like sshfs to forward /dev over the network.

Re: Building a QNX 7 Desktop

#38

Post by manyoso » Sun, Apr 30, 2017, 11:50 AM UTC

A better way to go is port ubuntu-Linux subsystem to QNX 7 like Microsoft did for windows 10. Should be much easier too since QNX is posix compliant.

And then QNX Screen wayland integration and you'd have a full fledged desktop full stop.

Re: Building a QNX 7 Desktop

#39

Post by protomyth » Sun, Apr 30, 2017, 11:51 AM UTC

QNX had some amazing demos back in the day. Doom playing with half a screen on one machine and half on another. The ability to restart drivers was pretty sweet for debugging. I wish BB10 had done better, the Passport's keyboard was on to something.

Re: Building a QNX 7 Desktop

#40

Post by jacquesm » Sun, Apr 30, 2017, 11:54 AM UTC

shmerl wrote: post #14

Animats wrote: post #10

That's nice, but sad. Until QNX 6.5, there was a full windowed desktop environment, with the Photon window manager. I used QNX on the desktop when developing a DARPA Grand Challenge vehicle from 2003-2005. Back then, at QNX 6.21, you had the window manager, the Eclipse development environment, Firebird (Firefox before the name change), and Thunderbird. Then QNX marketing cut off the free version, and all the free sof…

> It's what home routers and similar devices ought to be running instead of Linux. The bummer is that it's not FOSS.

I wrote a QNX clone (32 bit when QNX was still 16 bit) and it was meant to become open source but that never happened. One of the most interesting projects I've worked on.