15 Sep
2017
15 Sep
'17
4:52 a.m.
The u-root project (u-root.tk) is aimed at creating the *nix tools in Go.
The targets are firmware where linux and an initramfs are loaded; and root
file systems.
One goal was to get back to old school unix where the root always included
the source to create the commands. In the non-firmware mode all the sources
are there
and they are compiled on demand, save for the 4 go tooclhain binaries and
/init.
It takes about 15 seconds to compile all the tools at present.
We've got a demo OS for Chromebooks based on u-root called NiChrome
(NiChrome is an alloy of Chrome). This was a summer project for 2 interns
here. It helped show that the idea can work to support an OS distro.
We've also shown that linux and a u-root initramfs can replace most of UEFI
firmware on the Open Compute Platform nodes, reducing boot time from 8
minutes to 17 seconds. Not as fast as the 3 seconds I'd like but you gotta
start somewhere, and most of that time is beyond our control.
We can always use help if you're interested. I'm ok with C for kernels but
don't want to use it again in user mode, hence this project.
ron
On Thu, Sep 14, 2017 at 3:39 PM Erik Berls <erik(a)ono-sendai.com> wrote:
No, I am Spartacus!
I've toyed with this idea as well, mostly for getting a NetBSD environment
in a Docker container.
Maybe we should pool resources?
On Thu, Sep 14, 2017 at 15:04 Christian Groessler <chris(a)groessler.org>
wrote:
On 09/14/17 21:52, Steve Nickolas wrote:
-=erik.
--
Look, I lived through the Gray Davis years. I *need* a UPS.
I never managed to pull it off, but I tried
creating a full live Linux
environment based on musl, clang, Heirloom Toolchest and
OpenBSD/NetBSD sources. The idea was that I wanted to make a "Real
Unix" that happened to have Linux as its kernel. (It also would have
run the CDE as its default desktop.)
I, too, was toying with the idea of creating a NetBSD distribution which
uses the Linux kernel and NetBSD userland.
I very much like the concept of going to /usr/src and typing "make
build" (or "make world" on FreeBSD) and have the
whole base system rebuilt.
I've played with Gentoo Linux which also builds from source, but I found
it too complicated (for me, at least). On the
BSDs it's just Makefiles, and no strange python (or whatever) scripts to
build the system.
Maybe when I'm retired and have plenty of time...
regards,
chris
--