[openbeos] Re: Open BeOS

On 2003-10-18 at 16:04:13 [-0400], J. Grant wrote:
> > Excuse me, but aren't all/most of the command line tools that shipped with
> > R5 GNU?
> 
> My GNU/Linux computers proceed directly to a graphical environment after
> boot up. (I believe since around 1998 GUI has been my default).  I seem
> to remember BeOS having a Console Debugging mode which looked similar to
> the linux kernel booting display.  Are there keys to trigger this mode
> that I can press during boot up?

IIRC, hitting space bar during the "icon" start up screen will allow you to set 
this as an option. I haven't had to do it in a long time. :-)
 
> My query referring to the OBOS kernel was making the assumption that
> each core component of OBOS is distinct.

For the most part, they are.
 
> In the same way that the linux kernel loads and starts init which
> bootstraps the rest of the GNU system, does the OBOS kernel load and
> starts a bunch of daemons and then desktop?  Is there an online document
> detailing the boot up process at all?

It is far simpler than that - there is a shell script. If you look in 
/boot/beos/system/boot, there is a script called Bootscript.
 
> If the OBOS kernel is POSIX compliant, I don't see a reason why it could
> not be used with the GNU system.  I'm really interested in learning what
> is done better in the OBOS kernel than the Linux kernel and also the way
> the OS manages processes etc etc.

It wouldn't necessarily be easy. One could fairly easily change the bootscript 
to take out all of the servers, write a text based terminal tool using x86 text 
mode and boot with that. AFAIK, though, all of the X ports use app_server and 
networking. So you would need at least those. Then you would need to port the 
linux sound system to use BeOS style drivers, CUPS, etc. It would be *way* more 
work than it is worth, IMHO. But it could be done.

OTOH, I guess I don't undertand what the point is. Are you asking if we use the 
GNU tools (gawk, etc)? Yes. Are you asking if you could put the OBOS kernel in 
your RedHat distro and reboot and have it work? Not a chance. Something in 
between? 
 
> Writing a complete replacement for BeOS5 must be a very large task.
> Will OBOS take advantage of mature free software, like the GNU C library
> etc?

Wherever possible, yes. For example - our font rendering is done with FreeType. 
At least a couple of our translators are using libXXXX from the OSS community. 
We build with GCC as does every application.

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