Post B4yGq7w9x1n01vbCXA by hp@mastodon.tmm.cx
(DIR) More posts by hp@mastodon.tmm.cx
(DIR) Post #B4x8KoNDe0u9aPqvQW by nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt
2 likes, 4 repeats
So, this weekend I'm playing with Fiwix. Fiwix is a small hobbyist operating system for i386 that aims to be Linux 2.0 compatible while being small enough that a single human could understand it as a whole (it's ~30k SLOC, self-hosted, and can be built with tcc).A couple of years ago Fiwix was used in a fun project of "let's bootstrap a Linux system with only tiny tools that can be understood by a single person": https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap/blob/master/parts.rstMy refreshed interest in it comes from multiple sources: first, there is now a TCP/IP stack (still WIP). Second, GNU/Linux is *gestures ambiguously* in a strange state, so it is interesting to see how far one could get with a completely non-BSD non-standard tiny, toy-like operating system.The installation is quite straightforward. "Please keep in mind this kernel is not yet suited for production. Use at your own risk!" is, in itself, a proof of reliability.This is a beginning of a slow-going🧵
(DIR) Post #B4x8aEjbusr1ghgJ3Q by nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt
2 likes, 1 repeats
FiwixOS comes with quite a few ports, and will require close to 1GB on a disk. I suppose this is because the packages are not particularly optimised in size. The biggest packages beyond the base and GCC are Python3, Perl, ZX Spectrum emulator and Doom/Heretic.Also, look at this Halt message, so cute!The system is small, but functional. At the same time, there are quite a few sharp corners, unfinished and untested things. The list of packages/ports is small, so I want to bring a few things in. Is it going to be easy? Let's find out!🧵 cont
(DIR) Post #B4xAgWiWAfmp6ZIUrI by nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt
1 likes, 0 repeats
The first fun challenge is exchanging files with Fiwix. You see, Fiwix only supports ext2 (3?), Minix, and ISO9600 (CD drives).My daily driver is (still) MacOS, so I cannot just mount the ext2 partition to send files over. I can create an ISO image with the files, but this is a one-way trip. Would be nice to add the support for FAT16/32 disks to Fiwix, right?Well! First, I simply created a new CD image with mtools-4.0.49.tar.gz. Fiwix recognised the CD, and I was able to unpack mtools archive. Then I ran `configure`, and then edited a few things here and there (mostly mis-configurations in the config file). Then I ran `make`, and few minutes later I got myself a working set of tools to access FAT-formatted disks. Now I can copy files between Fiwix and MacOS, neat.🧵 cont
(DIR) Post #B4xAgZKsR1etE7G9vU by nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt
2 likes, 0 repeats
Fiwix understandably misses a few important tools here and there. Having an emulator capable of running different systems would be nice, right?Qemu is generally quite portable, but DosBox is smaller, and is good enough for running a large chunk of software I might want to run on my system. FiwixOS has an SDL1.2 port, so compiling DosBox for it was not difficult at all (a couple of patches are still required). I've thrashed around the video card settings a little bit, until I got it mostly working. I need to figure out why the keyboard is buggy, but I can start Windows under Fiwix, and play a game of solitaire.So, uh, viva FOSS? Great stuff, hobbyists! It is super duper awesome that I can just get a random toy-like OS, and simply compile the stuff I use regularly for it, and it would work. Extra kudos when the toy OS can boot with as little as 8 megs of RAM. Not gigs, megs.🧵cont?
(DIR) Post #B4xNULZN5fLmScXe8O by domi@donotsta.re
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@nina_kali_nina Nina how do you keep finding so many Weird, Cool and Obscure systems :D i’m usually good at this, but you’re on another level, this rules :ablobcatbongo:
(DIR) Post #B4xPwjP6GgyEOkOqps by nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt
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@domi I've been doing it for 25 years now. I'm sure someone who's had OS autism^w special interest for 50 years is capable of much more
(DIR) Post #B4xPydplwoQ3hdmonA by domi@donotsta.re
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@nina_kali_nina unfair, you’ve had a 10 year headstart over me! :akko_giggle:
(DIR) Post #B4xfj31c7QuwSruZOK by nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt
1 likes, 1 repeats
Thanks to help from the Fiwix devs, I have DosBox fully working (no sound, CD or network support yet). I got a bit upset that there's no windowing interface for the OS (yet), so I ported Bellcore MGR to Fiwix. It's half-baked, but it works. If you never heard about MGR, it's an X competitor and a terminal multiplexer with graphics.Here's my post about it: https://www.ninakalinina.com/notes/mgr/
(DIR) Post #B4yGTIrd9uOlG7b6WW by mirabilos@toot.mirbsd.org
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@nina_kali_nina ooooh, I wonder if it runs mksh and jupp…
(DIR) Post #B4yGq6Zn0iIjoG7p1k by hp@mastodon.tmm.cx
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@nina_kali_nina Very neat! How do the graphics work on fwix? Is this ye olden times Linux 2.x as well? As in, give a root running process access to the VGA and cross your fingers? :)
(DIR) Post #B4yGq7EYZ8uXqhCNZQ by nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt
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@hp I believe so :) There's no X port just yet. And while there's no X port yet, maybe I should compile MGR for it...
(DIR) Post #B4yGq7TneT6WbyKYKW by hp@mastodon.tmm.cx
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@nina_kali_nina Ohhh, that sounds very fitting! It might not be that hard to run an older xfree86 vesa server, it also expects to just poke at the VGA directly. It should work, theoretically. I think all it really needs from the os is PCI access and a VT. And I think the VT might be optional?
(DIR) Post #B4yGq7jkh9rfPRnIC8 by nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt
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@hp all the necessary parts should be in place, in theory. But having it compiling might not necessarily be trivial for someone who didn't work with old UNIX-like systems day and night in the recent past
(DIR) Post #B4yGq7w9x1n01vbCXA by hp@mastodon.tmm.cx
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@nina_kali_nina maybe I still remember how to do that! I definitely used to install my own x servers from source in the day.I might be misremembering whether that was or was not a cluster fuck. I'm remembering it as "not that terrible".I'll see if I can find some time to try! It'd be a fun exercise. If that works maybe...CDE?😱
(DIR) Post #B4yGq88vBZzufVZOQS by mirabilos@toot.mirbsd.org
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@hp @nina_kali_nina the MirBSD CVS repo has pretty much the last XFree86 release, in the X11 module, if that helps you. I never got a kdrive or tinyx to work, but the regular servers work.You might have even more luck with the XF3 module OpenBSD used to have. I wonder what happened to it, it’s not on the mirrors any more.
(DIR) Post #B4yv0VcKlA5MXFpaHQ by nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt
2 likes, 0 repeats
I took a moment to package the binaries for MGR - https://github.com/mikaku/FiwixOS/issues/2The port is dirty/incomplete because there's probably two people out there who would want to try it out, and both of us are better off starting it from scratch
(DIR) Post #B506Jcvx4hclNnHmaW by nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt
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Adding new software to Fiwix isn't all that difficult. Here's a PR I made for mtools, a userland FAT12/16/32 tooling: https://github.com/mikaku/FiwixOS/pull/4The DOSBox 0.74 is merged already, so it should be there with the next release in November :) If you want staging or dosbox-x, you're free to take a stab at it~yes it is still a 🧵
(DIR) Post #B506JdGVqG4SPYuCdU by nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt
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FiwixOS only has SDL1.2, and I wasn't sure whether new Grafx2 supports it, so I chose a release from definitely-pre-SDL2 and, well, simply compiled it. I had to tweak the makefile because some of the required libraries were not where the make expected them to be. It is great to have truly portable software. Great job, @pulkomandy and the Grafx2 team :)
(DIR) Post #B506Jdaid8EZQEML8C by nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt
0 likes, 2 repeats
So, did I mention that the developer of FiwixOS is currently working on bringing the networking to the OS? I am really looking forward to it, so in the meantime I'm doing what I can to help out. Years ago I touched Netsurf browser (https://www.netsurf-browser.org/) and tangentially helped with its ports to obscure platforms. It was a pleasure to discover that it is still as snippy, powerful and portable as it was back then. Yep, you're reading it right, I compiled a web browser to FiwixOS. Funny how Netsurf got to Fiwix before links2 did.The networking part is still not working, but it should be easy to add when a port of libcurl will be completed.(it is a part of a 🧵 about Fiwix OS, tiny UNIX-like OS made mostly by a single developer and so can be understood by a single person, too)
(DIR) Post #B506Jg8TAcQ5JUAK12 by nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt
1 likes, 0 repeats
Speaking of Netsurf, it really is an under-appreciated browser. To me it feels kind of like Lagrange browser for Gemini, but for decent Web 1.0+ HTML with HTML5, CSS and SVG. This is a great browser for small web.
(DIR) Post #B51vtmyWVY4zlsRuoS by pixx@merveilles.town
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@nina_kali_nina "Why does that look like Plan 9?"*reads*> made by the Bell Communications Research, and it looked like Plan 9's older sister.You had my curiousity, now you have my interest :3
(DIR) Post #B51vtnJ5H6Wgne4KrQ by cinap_lenrek@hj.9fs.net
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https://media.ccc.de/v/vcfb18_-_98_-_de_-_201810141215_-_die_guis_von_research_unix_und_plan_9_-_angelo_papenhoffCC: @nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt
(DIR) Post #B56I0D1fXXDLvZE7pg by drj@typo.social
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@nina_kali_nina i couldn't figure out in macOS/Fiwix how to make a ISO image that i could read on Fiwix (mostly, filenames in CAPS and some files don't read), but i did figure out:dd if=/dev/hdc of=mtools.tar.gz(that is, just jam a tarfile onto the raw blocks of a "hard disk" on the qemu side, and then dd it off on the Fiwix side)
(DIR) Post #B56I0DMwGSECzXB6zA by nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt
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@drj I used xorriso and it worked fairly well. There's now mtools and dosbox in FiwixOS repo, with patches and such :)