“After nearly a year of hard work the JNode team is proud to announce the release of JNode 0.2.5, the new intermediary development version of the JNode operating system. JNode is a free, open source Java technology base OS written fully in Java language (with a very small assembler nano-kernel). This release features OpenJDK integration, Java 6 support, substantially impoved consoles, experimental support for isolates and a large set of bug fixes and improvements to all parts of the system, including better memory mamagement and increased performance.”
This is a very interesting project to watch. I don’t like Java myself, but that’s mainly because it is slow to load and doesn’t integrate very well with other application on my system.
Having the Java VM running as an other operating system makes a lot of sense.
This is more for servers executing Java programs than for desktop users running Java Swing applications.
really I don’t think thats a stated aim of the project…
http://www.jnode.org
Seems for the 0.3 release they are trying to integrate a “user friendly desktop environment”
Alot of the performance issues could be resolved using a feature within the CPU to speed up execution. IIRC ARM for example created a CPU feature which improved java performance by a huge factor. I’m surprised that Intel/AMD hasn’t jumped on the bandwagon – especially for the server space.
interestingly chip pioneer David Ditzel gave his views on why Java processors weren’t a great idea in a recent podcast:
http://go.theregister.com/podcast/2007/09/21/scc_episode7_david_dit…
The argument is normally because they consume more power or that they add too much to an already bloated chip; but given how things have shrunk – I don’t see the harm. I mean, there are things like XML accelerators, cryto off loading boards and tcp/ip off loading. A CPU that can process Java quicker would certainly be a benefit rather than a pointless addition.
This Java-FAST (or did you say something else
meme is so old, people should think twice about uttering it as they give away their age. Now take your phone and load a 3D Java game and meditate on Java-FAST again.
And a pretty picture: Java is OK, it’s portable, scalable, standardized, runs pretty applications, servers, watches … you can run Java applications on Iphone
Etc.
I didn’t say the execution of Java code was slow, I said that loading the VM is slow and you can’t argue with that.
well, thats not entirely correct. An empty class (only a main method) starts as fast as releasing the enter key (P4, 3.2). However starting the UI (Swing, et al) takes a bit longer (empty class with a single line like: JOptionPane.showInputDialog(“testing”);)
approx 2 seconds to start – and 3 to shutdown (!?)
I am also seeing similar times with .net (why is .net never flamed for speed issues??) and I guess this is true with most – all? – VM based languages.
using Java 1.6 on windows btw.
Edited 2007-09-28 11:23
why is .net never flamed for speed issues??
I spend a good portion of each day doing so 🙂
I will not argue the meaning of the word slow, bot look around – many applications (MS Windows, OpenOffice, Adobe Reader, Gnome…) have non comparatively larger problems with loading. It is a technical issue, it can be solved, and it was solved for whom it mattered – check your mobile again.
And as I said in previous post that Horlveda deleted from the thread: Java is just fine.
On Windows or Linux, yes, it’s slow as hell. But since JNode runs everything on the JVM, it would of course be already loaded at the time you even log in to the system. VM loading time will only increase boot time, not the time to start an application.
(Of course, pre-loading the JVM could be done on any other system too)
which hides itself the hardware would increase the competition between processor architectures. I hoped Microsoft dared to do this step with Windows Vista. But it has become a YAWN (Yet Another Windows Nt).
It will be very nice if this OS can bring other scripting languages like Python, Ruby, etc.
http://www.jnode.org/node/1750
Included BeanShell and Rhino (JavaScript) as scripting languages (encouraging results with Jython, Kawa (Scheme), JRuby 1.0 and Scala)
(Have no idea why they list Scala with the “scripting languages” Scala though…
And before reverting to scripting languages, give Scala a spin. It far exceeds Java in power and flexibility.