Hi Martin, Thank you very much for detailed response.
On Sat, Mar 17, 2012 at 8:23 PM, Martin Decky <[email protected]> wrote: > > Let me start with a generic observation that HelenOS and MINIX (3) are > indeed quite different systems. I am not talking just about the design and > implementation, but also about the roots and current state. Currently, i am exploring HelenOS and going through user's and developer's guide in http://trac.helenos.org/wiki. I must say HelenOS is quite fascinating. > In some sense MINIX 3 can be seen as a more mature system, since you can > easily install it on your hard drive and run many familiar BSD utilities in > it. HelenOS is not yet so streamlined with respect to end-user installation > and ready-to-use applications, but, on the other hand, HelenOS runs on a > larger number of different hardware architectures, has (IMHO) more > progressive design and easier-to-understand source code. > > If you are looking for a microkernel multiserver OS which is almost fit as > a practical replacement for GNU/Linux, MINIX 3 is a better choice. If you > are looking for a microkernel multiserver OS which you can use to > experiment with bleeding-edge ideas and which you can indeed understand > from top to bottom in a short period of time, pick HelenOS. Very rightly said! I am an undergraduate student who likes to experiment with bleeding-edge ideas and HelenOS seems to be the best for that :) > We develop and cross-compile HelenOS mostly from Linux (*BSD, Mac OS X > and even Windows/Cygwin will also do). If you would like to add a new user > space application to the source tree, just have a look into the uspace/ > directory and browse the makefiles, it is not a rocket science. > I will try to port some userland applications very soon and see where it goes. Given HelenOS has BSD license, i guess it's preferred to port userland application from either NetBSD/FreeBSD or any other BSD flavor. Which one does HelenOS community prefer ? Different people use different tools to work on the sources of HelenOS. > Plain source code editors like Vim, jEdit or CoolEdit will do just fine, > but you can even configure Eclipse or NetBeans to do their job. Just > remember that the source tree of HelenOS is not a single source project, > but a set of several independent projects (the kernel, individual user > space libraries and applications, the boot infrastructure) -- opening the > whole source tree in Eclipse as is will likely just confuse the IDE. Thanks for letting me know of this. Vim will do an excellent job! I have tried to keep my answers brief and not go into too much technical > details. I hope you have at least a slightly a better understanding of what > HelenOS can and cannot currently do and where it can be extended. But > please do not hesitate to ask more specific questions. Thanks again for giving all of this information. This is probably the best response one can receive on a mailing list after his/her first post :-) And, i will get back with more questions very soon! I am just curious if there is any future plan of switching to Git as SCM ? Thanks, Vivek Prakash
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