On Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 10:19 AM, Toby Thain <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> Seeing Minix 3 on x86 and ARM is good. Unless it wants to wither when >> the world moves beyond x86 and ARM, it will need to be done with enough >> portability in mind to make porting it easy, yes, but it is hardly a >> failing that it isn't ported yet. >> > > Arguably, _only_ porting can fully reveal design issues that might impede > porting. But if as Liam says their goals are met fully on x86 and ARM then > I won't argue :) > The C compiler used by Minix 3 is Clang and at the moment Clang only supports x86 and ARM. Clang was used for licensing reasons rather than GCC. Other than the compiler issues the code to support a particular processor is pretty small. Switch compilers to one that supports your processor, write the few modules needed to support the particular features (memory management, I/O protection features) and you are done. Of course if your particular architecture doesn't have some necessary feature it would leave a security hole that cannot be worked around other than trust. When the world moves on from x86 and ARM I am sure Clang will get a backend for it and if still around Minix 3 will get ported. -- Doug Ingraham PDP-8 SN 1175
