[HN Gopher] Fiwix: Unix-like kernel for the i386 architecture
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       Fiwix: Unix-like kernel for the i386 architecture
        
       Author : ingve
       Score  : 60 points
       Date   : 2024-07-02 12:49 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | dlachausse wrote:
       | Very cool hobby OS project! MIT license and an impressive list of
       | software that is supported...
       | 
       | https://www.fiwix.org/packages.html
        
       | giantrobot wrote:
       | ...it won't be big and professional like HURD.
        
       | notorandit wrote:
       | Looks somehow similar to Minix.
       | 
       | I like the idea of people tinkering with os stuff.
        
       | kragen wrote:
       | fiwix is a crucial part of bootstrapping the modern software
       | environment from a small enough 'seed' binary that you can hand-
       | verify the binary; it's a kernel that you can compile without a
       | kernel to run the compiler on. as such, its importance goes far
       | beyond the hobby project its unassuming readme paints it as
        
         | yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
         | Can it do a (cross-?)compile of Linux and enough userland to
         | bootstrap up to a Linux system? I see that it says gcc 4.7 so
         | I'd guess that it should be possible, but I'm curious if
         | anyone's actually done it.
        
           | kragen wrote:
           | yeah, i'm pretty sure that's working, though i've been out of
           | touch with the live-bootstrap project for a few months
        
           | ryan77627 wrote:
           | I believe so! I did some messing around with the whole
           | "bootstrappable" suite of repos a few months ago and I
           | remember there was a repo [1] that automated the chain of
           | bootstrapping from a project known as hex0 to Linux 4.9
           | (iirc) inside qemu using fiwix as an intermediary. I didn't
           | have the time to experiment past running it and verifying it
           | works (it did, took my poor laptop around 10 or so hours to
           | run from start to finish), but I presume I would have been
           | able to compile the latest versions of GCC and Linux from the
           | final state of the VM it made. I may still have the image it
           | made lying around somewhere.
           | 
           | [1]: https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap
        
             | yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
             | I agree that it's sufficient to bootstrap to an older
             | Linux-based system, since the path from there to a full
             | modern system is well-trodden. That's very cool then,
             | thanks for the link:)
        
       | rurban wrote:
       | I wonder why you want POSIX compatibility when you start a new OS
       | from scratch. All this broken and weird stuff, like signals,
       | buffered synchronous IO, strings, locale, ... can be written in a
       | functional, safe and modern way, enabling safety and performance,
       | which is just not possible with POSIX.
        
         | dlachausse wrote:
         | I think a lot of it is availability of software. If you support
         | enough POSIX things compile with minimal patches.
        
           | rurban wrote:
           | It's better to write everything from scratch when the
           | foundation is broken. Look at the lisp machine or Concurrent
           | PASCAL. These systems were insanely small
        
             | dmitrygr wrote:
             | I look forward to the kernel, user space, compilers, and
             | web browser you will author from scratch
        
       | chriscappuccio wrote:
       | Similar to early/mid 90s Linux or BSD
        
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       (page generated 2024-07-05 23:00 UTC)