Operating System Status

[paintba||er]

I will use this thread to provide updates to the current status of my OS.


Name: Undecided. Possibly Erminix, Punix, or RuSiFix.
Stage: Planning
Logo: None yet. Hoping for someone to submit a Ermine one.
Kernel Type: Microkernel planned. Not 100% solid.
Architecture: i386
Current Version: 0.0.0
License: Undecided. Most likely GPL.
Website: Non-existant. Must decide name first.
Planned Features:

• Unix Like.
  
• Minimal amount of code.
  
• POSIX Compliant.
  
• No virtual memory (swap)
  
• Self Healing (drivers run in userspace and are automatically restarted upon crashing rather than bringing down the whole system as in a monolithic kernel (or a poorly designed microkernel))
  
• It will probably use Grub for the bootloader. At least in the beginning. Somebody else may decide to write one for it later, but it won't be me.

Code Written: None yet.
Needs To Be Done: Everything.
Bugs: None yet.
Estimated 0.0.1 Release Date: Unknown.

Contributers: None.


You may also use this thread to make suggestions, comments, and otherwise discuss the OS.

[paintba||er]

I'm getting way ahead again, but do you guys think that there should be a re-reincarnation server? The reincarnation server is what keeps track of the other servers, (drivers and stuff) and relaunches them if they crash. But I'm not sure if I should have a re-reincarnation server that just keeps track of the reincarnation server incase it crashes...

[paintba||er]

Thanks guys, your suggestions have been very insightful.


Anyway, I've come up with another idea that is much further out than my other ones. When the OS gets to a full release version (1.0) I could offer PCs preloaded with it. I'm not suggesting a lock in like Apple does, but some people would like to have a reasonably priced PC with an open source operating system. And other people would like reassurance that they won't have to deal with incompatible hardware. I could build the PCs and sell them at prices competitive to retail prices of Windoze PCs while still making a small profit. Well, I could do that as long as it didn't get too popular. If that happened then I'd have to hire some people, and get contracts with some manufacturers of PC components. But I don't see that happening...

I know that I would purchase something from someone who did that...I would buy PCs with Linux if anyone sold them at reasonable prices. But the few people who offer such services generally charge a few hundred dollars more than a Windoze PC with the same specs. Which is just insane.

[IllBashU]

that is way to out there, who would buy from u? and where would u get the money to buy all those pcs?

[paintba||er]

Plenty of people buy from places like I mentioned above. It's not much different. Except that they would be buying it from the creator of the OS. If I were looking for something that is compatible with an OS, the one that the creator of the OS is selling would be my first choice.

[paintba||er]

What do you think of using msh as the default shell? It doesn't really have any features at all, but it definitely follows the simplicity goal. Here's the complete source code:

/* Minimal shell C source - (c) 1999, Spock (Oscar Portela Arjona) */

#include <sys/wait.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <signal.h>
#include <string.h>

#define chkerr(c,msg) if (c < 0) {perror("ERROR (" msg ")"); exit(-1);}
#define mvdesc(d1,d2) {close(d1); dup(d2); close(d2);}
#define redir(n,f)    {close(n); chkerr(open(fv[n],f,0666),"open");}
#define size(v,s,u,n) {(v = realloc(v,s))[u] = n;}
#define l2            l1[vc]
#define l3            l2[p[0]]

int main(void) {
  char ***l1 = NULL, *fv[3] ,dir[50] ,c;
  int vc, bg, id, p[2], d;

  signal(SIGINT, SIG_IGN);	signal(SIGQUIT,SIG_IGN);

  while (1) {
    getcwd(dir,50); write(1,dir,strlen(dir)); write(1," $ ",d = bg = 3);
    for (;bg; fv[bg] = NULL) realloc(fv[--bg],0); size(l1,4,0,NULL);
    for (vc = p[0] = 0; read(0,&c,1) && (c != 'n');)
    switch(c) {
     case '<': d = 0; break;
     case '>': d = 1; break;
     case '|': if (l2) {vc++; p[0] = 0;} d = 3; break;
     case '&': if (d < 3) d++; else bg = 1; break;
     case ' ': if (d < 3) {if (fv[d]) d = 3;} else if (l2 && l3) p[0]++; break;
     default:  if (d < 3) {if (!fv[d]) size(fv[d],1,0,'');
                  size(fv[d],(id=strlen(fv[d]))+2,id,c); fv[d][id+1]='';}
               else { if (!l2) {size(l1,vc*4+8,vc+1,NULL); size(l2,4,0,NULL);}
                  if (!l3) {size(l2,p[0]*4+8,p[0]+1,NULL); size(l3,1,0,'');}
                  size(l3,(id=strlen(l3))+2,id,c); l3[id+1] = '';}}

    for (vc = 0; l2;) {
      if (!vc) d = dup(0);
      if (l1[vc+1]) chkerr(pipe(p),"pipe");
      if (!strcmp(l2[0],"exit")) exit(0);
      if (!strcmp(l2[0],"cd")) {if (chdir(l2[1]) < 0) chdir(getenv("HOME"));}
      else {if (!(id = fork())) {
	       if (fv[0] && !vc) redir(0,O_RDONLY) else mvdesc(0,d);
	       if (fv[1]) redir(1,O_CREAT|O_WRONLY|O_TRUNC);
	       if (fv[2]) redir(2,O_CREAT|O_WRONLY|O_TRUNC);
	       if (l1[vc+1]) {mvdesc(1,p[1]); close(p[0]);}
	       if (!bg) {signal(SIGINT,SIG_DFL); signal(SIGQUIT,SIG_DFL);}
	       chkerr(execvp(l2[0],l2),"exec");}
            if (!l1[vc+1] && !bg) while (wait(NULL) != id);}
      for (id = 0; l2[id]; realloc(l2[id++],0)); realloc(l2,0);
      close(d); if (l1[++vc]) {d = dup(p[0]); close(p[0]); close(p[1]);}}}}

(I hate the way he obfuscates the code to make it shorter. :/ )

And the description that goes along with it:

Minimal Shell by Spock (Oscar Portela Arjona)
---------------------------------------------

Hi, welcome to the info file of the minimal shell (msh), a little
linux shell designed for those of you who don't need most of the high level
functions of the actual shells and want to save some memory.

Actually this stuff is mostly tested, but if somehow it burns out
your computer, eats your dog, escapes away with your girlfriend or anything
else not very pleasant, I'm not responsible at all. ;-)

You can use it freely and even modify and distribute as long as you
mention me both in the code and in the documentation (something like "based
on the Minimal Shell by Spock (Oscar Portela Arjona)" will be right). Also,
if you make modifications to it and obtain an even more little program,
please send me it by e-mail.

As you can imagine, there are lots of things this shell can't
manage, but, as far as I know (and I know it pretty well ;-) it's abilities
cover:
- Execution of programs (I have thinking of wiping out this for saving
even more space ;-)
- Background execution.
- Input, output and error redirection from/to files.
- IPC (Interprocess comunication) using pipes.
- Internal commands (well, it only supports the "cd" and "exit" commands
but... who needs anything else? ;-)
- Printing of the current working directory in the prompt.

The sintax is pretty similar to other shells one: you write the
command you want to execute using blank spaces to separe the diferent
options you want to pass to the command and the '|' character to separe the
different commands to be interconnected by pipes. Also you can use the '<',
'>' and '>&' strings followed by a file name to redirect inputs or outputs
and '&' to force background execution.

As a tradeoff for the size saving, you will never get a 'sintax
error' when using this shell. Instead, the command line you entered will be
"fixed" to a correct one:
- Any redundant '|', '<' or '>' will be treated as not present.
Examples: "ls || grep m | | >>>>> t" -> "ls | grep m > t"
"cat < my | more <input" -> "cat | more < myinput"
- The '&' character will change to the next descriptor redirection if
entered after a '<' or '>' and activate the background execution
otherwise.
Examples: "cat &<in&out&err" -> "cat & < in > out >& err"
"cat <in &out &err" -> "cat out err & < in"
- The 'cd' command will accept only the first parameter it receives, and
will change to the HOME directory if there is no parameter at all.
Example: "cd here andhere andheretoo" -> "cd here"
- The exit command will ignore any parameter.

Well, I think that's all, if you have any question, comment, or just
wanna an autograph you can contact me at any of these e-mail adresses:
- spockid@geocities.com
- portela@bbvnet.com
- e970361@zipi.fi.upm.es

I hope you will enjoy this little contribution.

Spock (Oscar Portela Arjona)
Coder of the Infinite Darkness Demogroup
Infinite Darkness Web: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Peaks/7116/

It is a bit old though...and I can't seem to find anything about it anywhere. I only found it because I came across a post to an FTP site that had the source for a bunch of shells on a Linux forum. And it's also not GPLed...and I love tab completion, which this doesn't have...

[paintba||er]

Can somebody with some legal knowledge tell me, based on the above quote and source code, could I legally edit and GPL that shell as I mention his name? I was thinking of modifying it to add tab completion, wildcard parsing, and maybe a few other things, but I'd really rather have only GPLed apps in the default distribution. I'd contact this Spock guy, but he seems to have disappeared from teh interwebz. I could try to contact him through one of the emails that he provided, but I'm not very confident that I'd get a response. His geocities site is down, so he likely doesn't check that email, bbvnet is down, so the email server is most likely down as well, and the last one is at a Spanish school, which I'm sure he's graduated from by now.

I guess that I could use the Ash shell, but it is quite a lot more complicated. And I don't like it's tab completion. It only works for locations, not for the commands themselves.


Edit: I looked at some web archives of his site, and I found that the site went down in 2004. I want to see if there is a newer version than the one from 1999 that I currently have, but the archives don't include anything besides HTML and image files, so I can't download an updated version from the archives. Anyway, I noticed that the site said "Minimal Shell: A tiny linux shell (6Kb) presented at the Xunta Party 2000 (Mar 2000) Best Linux GPL App compr - Ranked 3th", so I searched "xuna party", which brought up a bunch of political shit, so I searched for "xuna party gpl", and well, look at the suggested correction:



LMAO


Edit: I can't decide whether or not to use the GNU Coreutils...it's a lot of code if I wanted to implement them myself, (GNU used a few hundred thousand lines) but I really don't want to include GNU software. It's not that the software is bad, Stallman and friends probably did a better job than I could, but I just don't like GNU. They're evangelist douches. Then if it did happen to be successful, they'd come along and horde the credit like they did with Linux. I'd shave RMS's ugly beard if he called it GNU/WhateverTheFu¢kICallIt. I guess I could use (and GPL) the BSD versions.

Edit: I think I'm just going to go with Zsh. The shell isn't something that should lack functionality for size.

Edit: You know, I think Zsh is a bit overkill...Bash is probably the way to go...I'm very indecisive...

[IllBashU]

LOL @ correction...

so how is your os coming?

[paintba||er]

It's still in the planning stage, and probably will be for a while, until I've planned everything out.