https://bootstrappable.org/projects/mes.html

A boot pulled up by its straps.

  * Benefits
  * Best Practices
  * Projects
  * Contact

Reduced binary seed bootstrap

Mes aims to create an entirely source-based bootstrapping path. The
target is to have GNU Guix bootstrap from a minimal, easily
inspectable binary--that should be readable as source--into something
close to R6RS Scheme.

As bootstrapping is presumably easiest and probably most fun with
Scheme, Mes comes with mescc: a C compiler/linker to bootstrap into
GNU GCC and GNU Guile, via TinyCC. Mes currently has an interpreter
written in C with garbage collector, a library of loadable Scheme
modules and test suite just barely enough to support a simple REPL
and a C compiler that can build TinyCC. One of the next steps of this
project includes replacing the mes and mescc-tools binaries with M1
sources based on stage0.

The following the graph shows how in Guix GCC is removed from the
bootstrap binary seed. This is the dependency graph of the bootstrap
as implemented in GNU Guix:

dependency graph of the bootstrap in GNU Guix

  * The nodes having elliptical shape are the static bootstrap
    binaries bundled into a single tarball; we show them to make
    implicit dependencies clear.

It is also possible to create a similar bootstrap path for other
distributions, as showcased by Nix at the Reproducible Build Summit.

Build GCC 4.7 with a smaller compiler

GCC is a complex beast and a binary of it is often used to bootstrap
the whole system. Version 4.7 is the last version of GCC to not
require a C++ compiler. This project aims to build GCC version 4.7
with a simple C compiler such as TinyCC.

Since October 2019, Guix bootstraps by using MesCC--the small C
compiler that comes with Mes--to build TinyCC, which is used to build
GCC 2.95.0, which then builds GCC 4.7.4.

Reducing the seed even further: stage0

Stage0 starts with just a 280 byte Hex monitor and builds up the
infrastructure required to start some serious software development.

With zero external dependencies, with the most painful work already
done and real languages such as assembly, Forth and garbage collected
Lisp already implemented.

Demonstrate some old school skill, by writing a new compiler or
interpreter or help with various support tasks required to keep this
project on track. Or if low level programming isn't for you, help
bridge the gap between our goal and where we are by writing low
dependency software in the high level language of your choice that
might be easier for us to bootstrap.

Even if contributing to it isn't for you, if you could take 7 minutes
to verify what already exists on whatever weird operating system or
hardware you have; we would love to hear about your results.

- back to list of projects

Made with  by humans and powered by GNU Guile. Source code under the
GNU AGPL.