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Its all about timing
Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2007 5:47 pm
by Dex
Whether your OS is a big success like linux or nobody uses it, is down to timing, not how good your OS is.
Here's a good link to the beginning of linux, that shows that linux was no differant than most OS's coded by osdev members.
http://kerneltrap.org/node/14002
A great quote is Linus Torvalds saying "Simply, I'd say that porting is impossible"
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Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 2:15 am
by inflater
I agree, like if we had our OS'es written back in 1990, when Microsoft was toying with next Windows 3.0 -and hey, 80386s on the market!-, we could make a revolution or such - like Microsoft Windows wouldn't be so famous word as DexOS or MenuetOS or {type your OS name here}.
But now, in 2007, it's almost impossible "to reach the #1 place", because, like big fans of Windows Vista, would use only "these superior and stable products" from MS. No Linux, no BSD, and maybe no WinXP (which is a lot better OS than Vista, IMHO) for them.
inflater
Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 8:26 am
by earlz
Well, I believe that there will be a day when either Mac or a *nix will catch peoples attention, one way or another, and will come up against Windows...and when this gets to about 50% of people using windows, 50% using that *nix....it will be quite amazing...I really hope to see that day lol..
When that happens though, many smaller OSs(I think) will get more attention....
meh...
Re: Its all about timing
Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 3:42 pm
by Candy
Dex wrote:A great quote is Linus Torvalds saying "Simply, I'd say that porting is impossible"
Porting a kernel requires its interface to be well defined and system agnostic, and everything behind it to be redesigned and rewritten. Don't bother keeping your i386 source-compatible with your ARM port.
Oh, and don't make stuff in ASM. It tends to port and adjust horribly.
Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 5:52 pm
by Dex
I agree with you on this candy, Its very hard to port a asm OS, but the ARM ver of DexOS, is more a total rewrite of the OS.
But on the + side, i think you end up with a better port, if its hand tailored to the processor.
Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2007 10:09 am
by Candy
Dex wrote:But on the + side, i think you end up with a better port, if its hand tailored to the processor.
That's very true and I nigh completely agree with it. My I586, I586-PAE and AMD64 ports will come from the same source tree, as will probably my ARM7 and ARM9 ports. They are so similar that splitting them up would reduce maintainability. This is something that's mostly prevented by assembly language - you can't use ARM9 opcodes in ARM7 code and you have to change every register reference in the AMD64 port from e* to r*. Effectively, that makes sharing asm code pretty impossible.