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SerenityOS – a graphical Unix-like OS for x86, with 90s aesthetics

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Re: SerenityOS – a graphical Unix-like OS for x86, with 90s aesthetics

#81

Post by olliej »

olliej wrote: post #80
humanrebar wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair, but I was replying to this being a good example of modern C++. It's atypical that implementing your own vector and string is even a good idea, let alone exemplary.

The C++ stdlib versions of vectors have different design goals, including a bunch of ABI constraints for very old code (things like the vector specializations). Likewise there are questionable spec behaviors like unordered_map that specifies suboptimal implementation.

Follow on thought - what happens for operator new[]() in kernel space? Does it depend on a malloc (vs. traditional kmalloc)?

Re: SerenityOS – a graphical Unix-like OS for x86, with 90s aesthetics

#82

Post by sjmulder »

akling wrote: post #55
bArray wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the future goal for this project? Will it ever reach a point where you say "it's done"? I quite like the idea of loading this onto an old laptop I have laying around for the purpose of using it as a distraction free portable editor (if it won't crash and lose everything). Now that you have networking and a compiler, you could build a "simple" package manager. It could be just a list of supported Git repositori…

The goal is basically open. I would like to make this system good enough that I can spend most of my time on it. Without losing track of the original ideas. A package manager is definitely coming sooner or later. There's actually an SDL port in the works (done by a stellar contributor, not myself.) I suspect that we're gonna need some sort of ports system in the Serenity tree to be able to maintain it. :)

If the shell and compiler are posixy enough pkgsrc may well work with minor changes!

Re: SerenityOS – a graphical Unix-like OS for x86, with 90s aesthetics

#83

Post by santafe »

akling wrote: post #13

Hello friends, author here! Fun to see my project on HN again. If you would like to see the system in action, I did a demo video in March[1] and one in April[2]. I’m happy to answer any questions you might have about the system. I’m not an expert on operating systems, but I can be pretty productive :) [1] https://youtu.be/hE52D-zbX3g [2] https://youtu.be/RBr5If8GrM4

But who is Csilla, Katica and Liza, and why are you using hungarian female names for your fonts? Don't get me wrong, i like it!

Re: SerenityOS – a graphical Unix-like OS for x86, with 90s aesthetics

#84

Post by santafe »

waz0wski wrote: post #33
seanvk wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BeOS is another one that comes to mind.

If you have not seen it, check out the BeOS-inspired Haiku https://www.haiku-os.org/

https://www.haiku-os.org/files/get-haiku/ported-software.png

Re: SerenityOS – a graphical Unix-like OS for x86, with 90s aesthetics

#85

Post by iforgotpassword »

akling wrote: post #13

Hello friends, author here! Fun to see my project on HN again. If you would like to see the system in action, I did a demo video in March[1] and one in April[2]. I’m happy to answer any questions you might have about the system. I’m not an expert on operating systems, but I can be pretty productive :) [1] https://youtu.be/hE52D-zbX3g [2] https://youtu.be/RBr5If8GrM4

Does it run on real hardware?

Any plans for 64 bit?

Any plans for SMP?

The old readme mentions a gcc patch. Is it still needed? What does it do? Just the final executable's format?

Is there an FAQ somewhere that I missed? :)

Re: SerenityOS – a graphical Unix-like OS for x86, with 90s aesthetics

#86

Post by toothandtail »

sbuk wrote: post #75
akling wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree about Windows GUI's and Unix CLI's. Sprinkle some MacOS on there and you have my vision for Serenity. All the fonts are hand-bitmapped by me, using the included FontEditor application. I was trying to construct the imaginary love-child of Tahoma and Fixed, so you are definitely on the right track there.

Surely OpenSTEP does this?

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

Re: SerenityOS – a graphical Unix-like OS for x86, with 90s aesthetics

#87

Post by alxlaz »

somatic wrote: post #67
nitrogen wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boot up an old Linux distro from around 2001 and compare WindowMaker, AfterStep, Fluxbox, KDE, Gnome, Enlightenment, and half a dozen others. Compare those to fictional UIs seen in movies, Hypercard, visual development systems like the ancient Klik n Play or modern Scratch or MaxMSP, etc. Learn about OLE (object linking and embedding) and document-centric vs. app-centric computing. Think about all the different ways…

This strikes me as profound and I would like to hear more. Do you have other writings? Are there any books about this? Do you think about this often?

There's a small, if somewhat contrarian move, especially in the *nix/free software communities, that goes along those lines. You'll find a lot of people fed up with hamburger menus and nondescript icons and widgets, poor API stability (and, therefore, lack of easy scriptability (is that a word?)) and other questionable developments of the more "modern" approach to building desktop systems.

Some of the folks in this camp are firmly in the traditional Unix "camp" and mock cat -v, but there's a pretty refreshing diversity of views there. Some swear by the Unix Haters' Handbook, others come from (what's left of) the Amiga community.

I don't know if there's a central gathering place, but if you look around the Fediverse, IRC, various tildeverse servers, you'll eventually run into someone :).

Re: SerenityOS – a graphical Unix-like OS for x86, with 90s aesthetics

#88

Post by oblio »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #39
sys_64738 wrote: post #10

Looks like Windows 95.

Which looks like nextstep.

Does it, though?

Windows 95: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_95#/media/File:Windows...

vs Nextstep: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTSTEP#/media/File:NeXTSTEP_...

Yeah they're both light grey, but other than that, they don't really look similar to me...

Re: SerenityOS – a graphical Unix-like OS for x86, with 90s aesthetics

#89

Post by andrekandre »

initself wrote: post #66

Why "unix-like" and not just Linux underneath, with the (really) cool 90s productivity software on top?

probably because that’s just not as fun, i would imagine a huge part of it is implementing everything from the low level to the high, and seeing how it all works together ^_^

Re: SerenityOS – a graphical Unix-like OS for x86, with 90s aesthetics

#90

Post by pjmlp »

userbinator wrote: post #41

Roughly speaking, the goal is a marriage between the aesthetic of late-1990s productivity software and the power-user accessibility of late-2000s nix.* In other words, a Windows GUI with a Unix-like CLI? That's something I can certainly agree with --- Windows has traditionally been very lacking with its CLI, while the Unix-ish systems (including Linux) seem to be quite fragmented and awkward at GUIs. I also thought t…

I would put Amiga, BeOS and NeXTSTEP on that context.

Although AmigaDOS isn't UNIX compatible, it had lots of cool features.

And in what concerns having a GUI with REPL-like CLI, workstation OSes from Xerox, ETHZ and the last iteraction of Plan9, Inferno.

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