Sorry for the late reply, I had meant to do it earlier than this but lost track of time. jody@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: > Greetings, everyone. As you may be aware, a long time ago I was "handed the > keys" to the ELKS project. I'd like to discuss the possibility of > continuing development. Excellent. I personally have always liked small OS's and kernels because their design is to keep it small. Thus, allowing single developers the possibility to understand all parts of the kernel (try that with the current Linux code base. :) ) > I have seen a reference to the RTOS "NuttX" and discovered an exchange in > which Gregory Nutt indicated ELKS and NuttX were too different in their > goals. Additionally, NuttX has no i86 port, and as we all know, the > hardest steps are usually the first ones. Because of these factors, I am > hesitant to say "abandon ELKS and develop NuttX instead." I am, however, > left with the question of duplicated efforts: what operating systems exist > that do the same general thing as ELKS, and how much overlap is there? > How "far" are they, in terms of overall usefulness? NuttX is interesting and the main developer seems really nice/helpful. His main concern about differing priorities was the fact that NuttX is designed to be embedded and thus doesn't care as much about security because the OS is embedded in the single running application (most of the time at least.) With that in mind, ELKS may still end up being more useful if the target. So if it's important for ELKS to continue to use some processor features like user/supervisor address modes (I think 286 has a protected mode option available), then ELKS is still viable here. As far as overlap, there's some overlap in that they're both (for the most part) implementing the POSIX OS interface in the kernel. There are many other small and embedded OS's (one of my favorites is KallistiOS for the Dreamcast) but I don't really know /that/ many that still target < 386's. > I'm also becoming curious about what it takes to retarget the bcc compiler > for other 8-bit and 16-bit processors (i.e. MOS 6502/65816, Zilog > Z80/Z8000, Motorola 6800/68000), particularly since there is evidence in > the current Dev86 bcc source code where the original compiler supported a > Motorola 6809 target that has been subsequently removed. While ELKS is > currently very i86-specific, it could prove very beneficial to open up the > ability to target more platforms. Is it going to be easier to make the Elks source less BCC specific or to add targets BCC? For instance, SDCC has targets for Intel 8051, Maxim 80DS390, Zilog Z80 and the Motorola 68HC08. Either way it may end up being a significant amount of work. > Finally, I'd like to ask everyone who still reads this list: considering it > is the year 2011, and 8086 machines were superseded more than 20 years > ago, should ELKS development continue at all, and if so, what direction > should it take? (The retargeting suggestion is part of this question.) I think the 8086/8186/8286 targets should be preserved, but it might be worthwhile to evaluate some other options. For instance, if the code could become less BCC specific everywhere it makes sense (or should I say, everywhere but arch/i86) it may then be possible to have an ARM or AVR port with GCC or a Z80 port with SDCC (perhaps with support for the C128...) Or perhaps I'm just dreaming at this point :P > I have taken the liberty of downloading as much ELKS-related code and > materials as possible, and I am prepared to set up a Git repository for > ELKS if enough interest in such a thing exists. Personally I did a git cvsimport almost two years ago (not much really came from that though), but an official Git repo for some of the current CVS trees would be even more ideal :) > Thanks in advance, and I'm looking forward to hearing from everyone once > more. > Jody Bruchon -- A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying convention use in e-mail clients? -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-8086" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
