[openbeos] Re: Open BeOS

"J. Grant" <jg-lists@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > 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.
> Ok, just reading it.

If you are interested in what happens before, you can read the 
specification for the boot process on x86 in one of our newsletters 
(just search for boot or x86 and you should find it).

> > 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? 
> I am only considering the kernel.  I'm just interested in how the 
> OBOS 
> kernel works.  If it is good it would be interesting to hack on it a 
> little and try it out with the GNU system.  I develop some stuff on 
> Mandrake and Debian distros already, it would be interesting to 
> compare 
> OBOS kernel with linux or the NetBSD kernel.

You seem to have a wrong understanding of a kernel. It is not possible 
to exchange the kernels in any system. You are just usually able to 
exchange the *Linux* kernel between different distributions of that 
kernel.
You are not able to just drop in or remove a kernel. The kernel is 
tightly bound to the userspace system. For example, glibc has a Linux 
specific (system dependent) section that doesn't relate to other 
systems using it. All BSD variants don't use glibc but their own libc. 
Also, you cannot just run a compiled Linux application on any of the 
BSDs - you either have to use a special Linux compatibility shell, or 
recompile it.
Simple recompilation is, of course, only possible for applications that 
are based on POSIX, as there are extensions in both, the glibc and 
BSD's libc that are not POSIX
compliant.
Like BSD, we will have most of the GNU tools running on our system.

> >> 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?

Yes, we will use some parts of the GNU C library - since BeOS' 
libroot.so (that's its equivalent) was based on it, it's the best way 
to use some parts of it for us too. However, since we are generally 
using another license, and also not targetting for full POSIX but for 
full BeOS compliance, we do not use it completely. We will probably 
only use those parts that are better than their BSD counterparts 
(better also means better maintainable, I am thinking of the time stuff 
here), but the libio part will be the biggest we'll use.

Bye,
   Axel.

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