base cross-platform kernel system

[durand]

I'm busy making my kernel a lot more portable and the changes have shown me exactly how much of the kernel is actually just logic versus hardware-specific implementation.

So, assuming that you have the basic logic section - the kernel proper - and it has a list of available, generic functions which the hardware-specific sections should provide, the matter of porting merely becomes implementing those funtions on each platform you want.

But then I thought, what if you were to just provide the hardware-specific sections and have that jump into an empty logic section?

Also, what if the logic section were to have certain guarantees about the enviroment it runs in: (no interrupts, paging, safe to switch tasks, safe to acces memory, ... etc ... or reasonable emulations of those abilities )

What you'd get is a cross-platform kernel base on which you could implement different logic - (and therefore different kernels? )

So... yeah... is there such a thing out there already? A cross-platform kernel base?

Like ... cut, paste, insert logic, run ...

[Solar]

OSKit / OSLib might be somewhat in that direction; I haven't looked at them in detail.

But what if I want a logic that breaks common assumptions, naming conventions, and basic techniques?

That's why I didn't look at OSKit / OSLib en detail - I didn't think I could write better logic, but I thought I could give better structure.

But it's only me. If you feel like it, go for it!

[durand]

I was thinking of providing my cross-platform base once as a bare system once I'm done with it... leaving out the logic. That's if something like it doesn't exist already.

Maybe it would be useful in a quick, development kind of environment. I mean, imagine being able to quickly develop a small cool application in a few minutes and have it cross-compile to multiple platforms without the need to install other stuff besides the kernel.

Kind of like, "Okay class, today we're going to develop a <insert something simple> and it's going to run on intel, sparc and powerpc. You have an hour. Go."

[Candy]

Kind of like, "Okay class, today we're going to develop a <insert something simple> and it's going to run on intel, sparc and powerpc. You have an hour. Go."

You can do most of those things with some weird thing nowadays called "unix". It runs on most/all of these systems and is very portable if you code carefully.

[Solar]

...or Java, or Perl/Tk, or Python... where the language runtime doubles as "kernel".

Rule #1 of Software Engineering: Define the purpose of your design clearly. Be specific about it.

[durand]

Yeah but i was talking about a kernel base and not really a system. Sure my example sucked but we're all here because we share the same interest of OS development.

So, with that in mind, I was asking if something like it already existed? Would it be of use to anyone? Would people use it?

It does kind of limit you to use the same structure as the base (paging, protected, etc) ... I hadn't thought of that. And none of us would be here if we didn't want to try something different So maybe it wouldn't have a place here.

[Pype.Clicker]

actually, when i see code for paging management in Linux, it always give me the feeling things have been over-complicated and do not get the full potential of the target machine ... one of the reason being the very low-level multiplatform behaviour.