>> >> Also can the nvidia driver work ? > >I highly doubt the nvidia binary driver would ever work on a NOMMU x86. >I don't think they have any interest in supporting anything other than >the 99.999% standard x86 setup.
Damn so it will prob be painfull if at all, unless I can fake a lib stub. > >Running x86_64 without MMU simply sounds insane. I can't imagine there >is a good reason for doing it. > >The memory fragmentation issues with NOMMU are painful and given the >chance I would always use MMU if available. I don't care if it costs >a few percent in performance, it simplfies so many things and helps >provide so much more robustness and helps debuging. > >I guess I really don't understand the desire for uclinux on x86 at all. >:) For an OS running non safe ( memory and type) apps or /and monolithic I agree. But I'm not I'll explain. It's a long story but basically 10 or so of us have been working on a Singularity style software protected (ie no ring 3) OS Toolkit ( to build OS) with software protection for about 3-4 years. ( These come under Mosa , Cosmos , Sooos and sharp OS) but its bogged down as most of the efforts (90%) has gone into the AOT compiler and tools ( debugger), though we do have some booting OS with file system support. For such an OS to be useful (past education) you need a very good optimizing compiler now the mono or MS C# to CIL compilers do a lot but not enough. While this has been going on I have been designing an OS for about 12 months and have been building it on windows (using an emulation HAL) but as a lazy, time stricken older dev it struck me that I can get a MMUless version of Linux running with Mono , then I have something useful already and after adding new Async IPC ( for managed to managed) and some runtime checks can then slowly migrate drivers to safe language micro kernel style user apps ( even if it is just a wrapper of some mature code) . The benefit here is I start with a mature and useful code base and can continue to improve it . It is also very portable ( a lot of the porting between arch is problematic due to different MMUs) since like Java the C# apps will just work on dif arch. Note we support all the .Net language ( C#, VB , F# , j# , Iron Python , ruby , php ) as well as Java ( via a Java to CIL converter) . Here is a blog post http://www.shanghai-software.com/blog/archive/2010/04/06/managed-os.aspx Please note the Mosa guys will prob run with a monolithic MMU ( but no ring 3) while im working on a micro kernel style OS. Note Linux is just an idea at the moment , if uClinux + Mono proves more trouble than it's worth than its back to a pure green field C# OS . My goal is to gain about 10% perf from dropping the MMU ( see paper Rethinking the Software Stack 2006) and use about 5% of that to make it a Micro Kernel ( but note we have no ring 3) and a few run time checks ( most of the checking is in the AOT compiler the only executable you can run are CIL ( managed) libs. We can do this because without a ring 3-0 switch context switches just become cheap task switched. The end result is a self healing ,easier to maintain more secure more reliable OS with about the same speed or slightly faster than Linux. The cost is you can only run CIL/Java apps and drivers ( though a few trusted drivers could be wrapped native). _______________________________________________ uClinux-dev mailing list uClinux-dev@uclinux.org http://mailman.uclinux.org/mailman/listinfo/uclinux-dev This message was resent by uclinux-dev@uclinux.org To unsubscribe see: http://mailman.uclinux.org/mailman/options/uclinux-dev
