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MotorOS: a Rust-first operating system for x64 VMs

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Re: MotorOS: a Rust-first operating system for x64 VMs

#71

Out of curiousity, why would a small kernel take a whole 200ms to start on a modern computer? Wouldn't it need to initialize some metadata for the memory pages, mount the filesystem, and try to launch an init process? I suppose there might be an ethernet driver and possibly something to pipe logs to ("stdout" for the VM) to initialize. Shouldn't that all take a few microseconds? Or is all the slowness in the host pre…

Because of the debug mode

Re: MotorOS: a Rust-first operating system for x64 VMs

#72

One thing I keep hoping to see in all of these kernels in Rust is an async first kernel. Is there something that makes this particularly difficult or do folks not see the value in it? I know from following along with Phil Oppermann’s OS in Rust series that is definitely possible, but these last few OS’ in Rust seem to not be attempting this, https://os.phil-opp.com/async-await/

Out of curiosity, what would be the benefit?

Re: MotorOS: a Rust-first operating system for x64 VMs

#73

Sounds interesting, but it also reminds me of what Linus once said when asked about fearing competition. From my memory his answer was something like: I really like writing device drivers. Few people like that and until someone young and hungry comes along who likes that I'm not afraid of competition.

So Linux will essentially just become a HAL / "bios"

Re: MotorOS: a Rust-first operating system for x64 VMs

#74
post #62
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> your favorite game consoles unless it's a steamDeck, ofc. No love for consoles, though.

If I'm in the mood for being a little glib... where do you think that Linux distribution that SteamOS is based on got its user-space (or more seriously, its drivers?) Also: the SteamDeck is by any reasonable standard a console. It just happens to run a windowed environment out of the box. Don't be that guy. If you want to pump Valve, focus instead on their contributions to the Wine project.

No idea why the personal involvement with valve pumping has come from. Atari "VCS All-In Bundle" is debian based, too. They are not playstation popular, of course. Like mentioned "no love for consoles", dont own one, not interested, either.

Re: MotorOS: a Rust-first operating system for x64 VMs

#75
post #62
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> your favorite game consoles unless it's a steamDeck, ofc. No love for consoles, though.

If I'm in the mood for being a little glib... where do you think that Linux distribution that SteamOS is based on got its user-space (or more seriously, its drivers?) Also: the SteamDeck is by any reasonable standard a console. It just happens to run a windowed environment out of the box. Don't be that guy. If you want to pump Valve, focus instead on their contributions to the Wine project.

> where do you think that Linux distribution that SteamOS is based on got its user-space (or more seriously, its drivers?)

Are you saying that Arch gets its userspace and drivers from FreeBSD?

Re: MotorOS: a Rust-first operating system for x64 VMs

#76
post #9

It sounds like a cool project and I hope it continues development, but there is such a huge graveyard of such projects that have never gone anywhere that I struggle to get excited about them anymore. Replacing Linux is really hard, even for specific uses like cloud.

Replacing Linux is hard even for the BSDs, and those are very well established and considered basically next-in-line for similar tasks.

Maybe the BSD are too close to Linux to displace it.

Re: MotorOS: a Rust-first operating system for x64 VMs

#77

Out of curiousity, why would a small kernel take a whole 200ms to start on a modern computer? Wouldn't it need to initialize some metadata for the memory pages, mount the filesystem, and try to launch an init process? I suppose there might be an ethernet driver and possibly something to pipe logs to ("stdout" for the VM) to initialize. Shouldn't that all take a few microseconds? Or is all the slowness in the host pre…

Many years ago I contributed to IncludeOS and that thing could boot a vm in a millisecond under the right circumstances, allowing for things like per request vm isolation. So I suspects it's a mix of hardware circumstances and the way the microkernel is implemented.

Re: MotorOS: a Rust-first operating system for x64 VMs

#78
post #7

[flagged]

Everything is relative of course but it's a consensus view in OS literature that the Unix family of operating systems doesn't have strong security. There's a huge TCB in which bugs lead to vulnerabilities with high probability, as we see all the time. This is why eg cloud providers don't rely on the OS to isolate customers from each other. Since the reneissance of virtualization, many security focused systems have bu…

What is using seL4-based virtualized systems? I am very interested in trying that out of the prices aren't for enterprise only.

Re: MotorOS: a Rust-first operating system for x64 VMs

#80
post #72

One thing I keep hoping to see in all of these kernels in Rust is an async first kernel. Is there something that makes this particularly difficult or do folks not see the value in it? I know from following along with Phil Oppermann’s OS in Rust series that is definitely possible, but these last few OS’ in Rust seem to not be attempting this, https://os.phil-opp.com/async-await/

Out of curiosity, what would be the benefit?

In theory, it would simplify concurrency primitives in the kernel space, especially on the main thread, which is something I’ve notice is not an area that a lot of kernels explore.
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