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Nanix: An idea for a modern, small, Unix-like operating system

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Re: Nanix: An idea for a modern, small, Unix-like operating system

#51

Post by giancarlostoro »

scintill76 wrote: post #39
giancarlostoro wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I partially would love to see is a Unix like OS for the Pi thats designed and built specifically to take full advantage of everything the Pi has to offer. The Pi especially with the Pi Zero is a great tool to learn and teach. Since the Pi Zero is so cheap if it breaks you buy a new one...

What does the Pi offer that Linux doesn't take advantage of?

Compared to an x86 OS that is specialized and fits in a few MB worth of storate media. I think a custom OS for the Pi could be very lightweight and efficient. Especially given how spread out the SBC is. I am sure there could be a stripped down Distro for the Pi as well. Its a shame that Slitaz is kind of dead.

Re: Nanix: An idea for a modern, small, Unix-like operating system

#52

Post by swetland »

If folks want to experiment with a tiny, bare-bones unix-y OS on relatively modern platforms, xv6 (used as a teaching OS at MIT) is ~10kloc of C for the kernel and a handful of userland programs: https://github.com/mit-pdos/xv6-public

More information, docs, etc: https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/2014/xv6.html

A few years back I did a quick port of it to x86-64 as a project to learn more about 64bit intel (having been in the ARM world for some time) which was fun: https://github.com/swetland/xv6

Re: Nanix: An idea for a modern, small, Unix-like operating system

#53

Post by hestefisk »

newwbb wrote: post #3

This has already been done. Works fine on older hardware: http://www.toms.net/rb/

Ah yes and LOAF - Linux on a floppy. The web site doesn’t exist anymore but it was the first Linux I played with in 1999 because my father wouldn’t let me install Red Hat Linux 5.1 on his hard drive. So I was force to boot off a floppy every time.

Re: Nanix: An idea for a modern, small, Unix-like operating system

#54

Post by emayljames »

squarefoot wrote: post #6

A possible alternative: pester Blackberry with requests for opening the 32bit variant of QNX (crowfunding?), since they're likely moving to 64bit anyway. Very small devices with RAM sizes well below the Gigabyte are the ones which would benefit the most from it.

Or go full Assembly OS (a tiny size and gui): http://menuetos.net

Re: Nanix: An idea for a modern, small, Unix-like operating system

#56

Post by squarefoot »

emayljames wrote: post #54
squarefoot wrote: post #6

A possible alternative: pester Blackberry with requests for opening the 32bit variant of QNX (crowfunding?), since they're likely moving to 64bit anyway. Very small devices with RAM sizes well below the Gigabyte are the ones which would benefit the most from it.

Or go full Assembly OS (a tiny size and gui): http://menuetos.net

That would surely make it super fast and super tiny, but sadly also super non portable to different architectures like ARM and very hard to maintain or even develop for.

Re: Nanix: An idea for a modern, small, Unix-like operating system

#57

Post by wiz21c »

o-__-o wrote: post #23
wiz21c wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how old are you ? :-)

There are people alive in the industry today who have never seen a floppy disk. CDROMS Too but because of DVDs and BDs they are still in recent memory

yeah, i know, i didn't mean any disrespect.

I grew with floppy disk (5.25 inches) and, yeah, it's perfectly normal (and fortunate) and the people have forgotten them.

AFAIAC, I have fond memories of them : the sound of the drives (anybody remembers Locksmith, CopyII+,... ?), the hope that the copy you made would work (those floppies were not that reliable), my first experience in cracking, etc.

Re: Nanix: An idea for a modern, small, Unix-like operating system

#58

Post by PeCaN »

squarefoot wrote: post #56
emayljames wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or go full Assembly OS (a tiny size and gui): http://menuetos.net

That would surely make it super fast and super tiny, but sadly also super non portable to different architectures like ARM and very hard to maintain or even develop for.

to be honest writing x86 assembly is Not That Bad™ (personally I can't speak for ARM though)

I wrote some simple silly applications for KolibriOS[0] a while back and it's relatively pleasant (I think a basic GUI window is less code than a Win32 application in C…)

[0] A MenuetOS fork (which has diverged a fair bit by now): https://kolibrios.org/en/

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