3 ms·

How was linux intended to run?

• cachvico 7y ago
  On a PC.
• kej 7y ago
  On a 386 with AT hard drives.
• mr_toad 7y ago
  It’s in the article: “The common answer is that it requires a 32-bit architecture and an MMU and at least a megabyte of ram to fit the kernel.” He gets around the 32 bit + MMU requirement by emulation. It’s a cool hack, but it really is a hack.
  • lisk1 7y ago
    According to him it takes about 5 hours to get to the command prompt which is kinda funny but interesting project nevertheless
    • 0815test 7y ago
      I'd imagine that a modern kernel has a lot of pointless fat in it and that the 5-hours figure could be reduced if perhaps only slightly, with appropriate optimization effort. It might even be useful to deliberately have such a super-slow (but reliable, since it runs on highly deterministic microcontroller-class HW) benchmark in the mix, as you would be able to make very precise and fine-grained measurements about how even seemingly-unrelated changes might impact performance within the kernel, whether for the better or worse.
      • silly-silly 7y ago
        I believe that the idea would not be relevant in "general purpose benchmarking improvements" due to the vast differences in micro architecture between this CPU and modern CPU's. The pipelining and internal optimizations differ greatly.