5 ms·
That isn't a kernel
by topbanana 13y ago
That isn't a kernel
- steveklabnik 13y agoUntrue. Now, it's not a _useful_ kernel, but it is one. In fact it does one thing and does it well. It's an exemplar of the UNIX philosophy! ;)
- brokenparser 13y agoIt only supports itself, so not a kernel. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel_(computing) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel_(computing)
- benatkin 13y agoI disagree. It ships with a single built-in application which turns the screen red. Someone can take the codebase and replace the application with a different one. I seem to remember some old 5 1/4 inch disks that contained both an OS and an app. That's approximately what this is in its current state.
- brokenparser 13y agoDon´t know why this was downvoted, you hit the nail on its head. The fact that it runs directly on hardware doesn't make it a kernel, it doesn't provide any abstractions for applications to run unmodified without specific hardware provisions.
- steveklabnik 13y agoExokernels provide no abstractions, just a few safety guarantees. So you could argue that this is just an unsafe exokernel. ;) That said, "is it really a kernel as per Wikipedia" is not particularly interesting. It's a damn cool hack that could be the starting point for something interesting and useful, that's all I care about.
- pi18n 13y agoThat's right, don't let their pedantry get you down. It was an interesting post, thank you for sharing it.
- cwzwarich 13y agoExokernels still provide abstractions that allow multiple userspace processes to interact with the hardware. The abstractions are just closer to the underlying hardware, e.g. disk blocks instead of files.
- topbanana 13y agoI was just a little disappointed Steve. Interesting post for sure. Would be interested in seeing part 2 ;)
- steveklabnik 13y agoMy friends have been working on an exokernel in D for years, so that's been our go-to for this kind of thing. It's only like 10 kloc, maybe we should port it for fun...
- pvnick 13y agoThat isn't a useful comment