3 Aug
2006
3 Aug
'06
7:32 p.m.
Alexey Toptygin wrote:
That must be the simplest set of x86 hardware that you can write a
networked, protected VM OS on; all long-lived, well-defined interfaces,
and only one set. No disk drivers even :-) Could you fit into such a
small footprint with their stock kernel? I doubt it; I think this was a
special build.
Then there's their entirely in-house userland. Could you fit a variety
of things written by different groups? Again, I doubt it; code would be
duplicated, and it would be hard to remove everything non-essential
without removing something essential attached to it.
I don't hate QNX, but for some reason this demo has always irked me; I
don't feel it's fair to compare a nifty trick to a complete minimal
system. If you want to do something practical on x86, you'll need a lot
more than one floppy. Today's debian installer needs 2 1.44 floppies of
drivers on top of the most common ones built into the kernel (which
lives on its own 1.44 floppy).
It was a *demo*. It wasn't meant to be anything but that. QNX is
essentially an embedded OS, so I doubt that it was any more special than
some production builds. Even if it was, and even stipulating that it
was all hand-picked code, it was, and still is, a damned impressive
DEMOnstration.
The statement that you can't do anything useful from a single floppy
is also simply not true.
http://www.zelow.no/floppyfw
Doc