I'm very impressed any time I see people pouring so much work over long periods of time into hobby projects.
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A completely-from-scratch hobby operating system
31–40 of 79 posts
Re: A completely-from-scratch hobby operating system
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't QNX a microkernel? I remember it being known for being quite fast?
As a real-time OS it is known for deterministic response times. If it were exceptionally fast (and licenses cheap enough), you'd see hosts in the TOP500 using it.
I agree 100%. QNX is lurking in products you may use. It was the OS for the show control system that is used throughout entertainment where real-time is necessary for the safety of the devices it controls, which also have hardware safety at the lower level. I would drop into the QNX terminal for certain tasks. Unfortunately, you used to be able to download the show control software and play with it, but it has since been bought buy a company that sells it with the equipment they rent, so you need to buy trainging and it is behind their wall now. Not QNX, but the show control software that runs on QNX.
Re: A completely-from-scratch hobby operating system
#33Then why in the heck is he going for POSIX compatibility, when he can afford the luxury of not having to deal with blocking syscalls and all this crap? Much easier and safer multithreading. Also faster. And why we are there, why not a safer microkernel, keeping everything in userspace? Questions over questions.
>why in the heck is he going for POSIX compatibility Because existing desktop applications can be ported to ToaruOS >why not a safer microkernel, keeping everything in userspace? This is a design choice, microkernels aren't necessarily better than hybrid, they're slower, harder to debug and process management can be complicated
Just curious how hard it would be to forego POSIX entirely if you were building an OS. I know TempleOS is entirely from scratch. I'd like to implement a small LISP like SectorLISP [1] (see yesterday's posts too on HN). I don't know much about building my own OS, so I'd like to start with something like MenuetOS (my first PL was asm), SerenityOS, TempleOS, or this one. I'd like it to be completely an 'island', i.e. POSIX not a requirement. I want to use it to hack on in isolation without any easy copy/paste shortcuts. I know Mezzano exists, and it has booted on bare metal, but I would like to start with the OS's above, implement my own LISP, and go from there.
Any other OS recommendations base on my ignorant, but wishful, reqs above? I realize there are some others in Rust too. Thanks!
Re: A completely-from-scratch hobby operating system
#34This is by Klange, the owner of the #osdev channel on Libera chat, associated with osdev.org. Super nice individual and always posts updates and interesting tidbits about ToaruOS.
Strange, but welcome, to see it on the frontpage! :)
Re: A completely-from-scratch hobby operating system
#35I love that the OS seems to be named after Toaru Majutsu no Index and Toaru Kagaku no Railgun. Misaka the kernel and Kuroko the interpreter are named after iconic characters from the series.
Agreed. At first I thought my weeb brain was just making associations and then I read the component names I realized its all based on Raildex.
Re: A completely-from-scratch hobby operating system
#36Then why in the heck is he going for POSIX compatibility, when he can afford the luxury of not having to deal with blocking syscalls and all this crap? Much easier and safer multithreading. Also faster. And why we are there, why not a safer microkernel, keeping everything in userspace? Questions over questions.
>why in the heck is he going for POSIX compatibility Because existing desktop applications can be ported to ToaruOS >why not a safer microkernel, keeping everything in userspace? This is a design choice, microkernels aren't necessarily better than hybrid, they're slower, harder to debug and process management can be complicated
> microkernels aren't necessarily better than hybrid, they're slower, harder to debug and process management can be complicated
I was basically on board, but how are they harder to debug? I'd think being able to run components in userspace would make debugging way easier.
Re: A completely-from-scratch hobby operating system
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
>why in the heck is he going for POSIX compatibility Because existing desktop applications can be ported to ToaruOS >why not a safer microkernel, keeping everything in userspace? This is a design choice, microkernels aren't necessarily better than hybrid, they're slower, harder to debug and process management can be complicated
Just curious how hard it would be to forego POSIX entirely if you were building an OS. I know TempleOS is entirely from scratch. I'd like to implement a small LISP like SectorLISP [1] (see yesterday's posts too on HN). I don't know much about building my own OS, so I'd like to start with something like MenuetOS (my first PL was asm), SerenityOS, TempleOS, or this one. I'd like it to be completely an 'island', i.e. PO…
Someone who would make a new OS, should define a completely new system call interface, as it is likely that now it is possible to conceive a better interface than 50 years ago and anyway if it would not be different there would be no reason to make a new OS, instead of modifying an existing one.
Nevertheless, the first thing after defining a new OS interface must be writing a POSIX API translation layer, to be able to use without modifications the huge number of already existing programs.
Writing a new OS is enough work, nobody would have time to also write file systems, compilers, a shell, a text editor, an Internet browser and so on.
After having a usable environment, one can write whatever new program is desired, which would use the new native OS interface, but it would not be possible to replace everything at the same time.
Besides having a POSIX translation layer, which can be written using as a starting point one of the standard C libraries, where the system calls must be replaced with the translation layer, some method must be found for reusing device drivers made for other operating systems, e.g. either for Linux or for one of the *BSD systems.
Nobody would have time to also write all the needed device drivers. So there must exist some translation layer also for device drivers, maybe by running them in a virtual machine.
The same as for user applications, if there is special interest in a certain device driver, it should be rewritten for the new OS, but rewriting all the device drivers that could be needed would take years, so it is important to implement a way to reuse the existing device drivers.
Re: A completely-from-scratch hobby operating system
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
>why in the heck is he going for POSIX compatibility Because existing desktop applications can be ported to ToaruOS >why not a safer microkernel, keeping everything in userspace? This is a design choice, microkernels aren't necessarily better than hybrid, they're slower, harder to debug and process management can be complicated
> microkernels aren't necessarily better than hybrid, they're slower, harder to debug and process management can be complicated I was basically on board, but how are they harder to debug? I'd think being able to run components in userspace would make debugging way easier.
You are now debugging a distributed system.
Re: A completely-from-scratch hobby operating system
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just curious how hard it would be to forego POSIX entirely if you were building an OS. I know TempleOS is entirely from scratch. I'd like to implement a small LISP like SectorLISP [1] (see yesterday's posts too on HN). I don't know much about building my own OS, so I'd like to start with something like MenuetOS (my first PL was asm), SerenityOS, TempleOS, or this one. I'd like it to be completely an 'island', i.e. PO…
Someone who would make a new OS, should define a completely new system call interface, as it is likely that now it is possible to conceive a better interface than 50 years ago and anyway if it would not be different there would be no reason to make a new OS, instead of modifying an existing one. Nevertheless, the first thing after defining a new OS interface must be writing a POSIX API translation layer, to be able t…
At that point, why not just contribute to Linux?
Re: A completely-from-scratch hobby operating system
#40I really like the UI! Most hobby OS's just do the same bland patterns most of the time.