Technologists fear (and loathe) that which has no purpose. Why must some insist in deriding an operating system like Haiku that doesn’t fit their particular needs or precepts of what has a purpose, when, it’s advanced enough to have a decent web-browser and productivity software? Today I shall be further offending these people’s tastes with a look into LoseThos–a pure 64-bit, preemptive-multitasking, multicored PC operating system that is intended to be used as a secondary operating system for user’s recreational programming on their best PC while dual booting a primary system such as Linux or Windows where they do networking and other modern activities such as multimedia. Yes, LoseThos has no networking, no security of any kind, and VGA graphics; but it certainly has a purpose: to be fun! (for programmers, at least)
Terry Davis, author of LoseThos writes to OSnews:
LoseThos is not a general purpose operating system, which is a fairly radical concept. Others aim to work for industrial servers, mobiles and home desktops. LoseThos is aimed at just home desktops or possibly laptops. There are simplifications made in the way file I/O is done which might be a problem for general purpose operating systems. It typically loads whole files into memory, for example. It also does a whole-file, non-interrupt driven technique for file I/O which would not be suitable for servers but which is fine on home systems where you’re mostly interested in the focus task.
I enjoyed finding-out about all the internals of my Commodore 64 when I was a kid and I imagine many people today at first think “open source” means they will be able to get involved under the hood, only to discover it is intimidatingly complex. These are the primary people LoseThos is intended for, though, its API is also more welcoming with only a single line of code needed for “Hello World” and only three lines of code to put graphics on the screen. It is innovative in many ways and, since it was written completely from scratch with no concern for backward compatibility, such fundamentals as “why should source code be just ASCII?” were considered.
There’s no reason for another Linux, so LoseThos is fundamentally different. The way it is different is it has no protections against bugs in programs or malware. The only reason memory protection and security exists is to protect against
bugs and malware. Eliminating such protections makes LoseThos orders of magnitude simpler, weighing-in at only 120,000 lines of code including the compiler. Believe it or not, the optimal performance of a CPU is achieved by eliminating the overhead of protections, but, since it’s usually not a big percentage lost, seeking optimal performance is not a very sane reason to use LoseThos.PCs are nice because hardware innovations are possible, but the diversity of devices means a new operating system is not likely to emerge because there are thousands of drivers you need and, practically, you must own each piece of hardware to write a driver for it. It might be possible to do modern graphics resolutions and colors by making drivers for a few graphics cards, but if you want a generally usable operating system I concluded there was no way except least (greatest) common denominator hardware, which is 640x480x16 color VGA. This fits nicely with LoseThos’ distinctiveness of simplicity and is less of a problem than you might think for user-made programs because programmers hate creating artwork.
The best way to demonstrate LoseThos is to see it in action, Terry has provided a video tour of the OS. When I watch this, what comes to mind is “it’s full of stars!â€. Confusing, but nether the less, cool.
(Note: this video is provided in an open-format—Ogg—using HTML5 video embedding. if you cannot view the video, try the version on the LoseThos website)
As you can see, LoseThos is certainly not designed, nor does it want to be, a competitor to any traditional desktop operating system. Its goals are not greater than is the practical reality and desires of the programmer creating it. This I understand greatly, because I always seek to use the computer as a tool to solve my technological problems first, and ancillary benefits are gained if other people can put the code / technique to use. When the advice is given “to be true to yourselfâ€, then LoseThos follows that notion to the letter. Would I ever dream of building an OS to bring down Microsoft? No. Where would the fun be in that? The fun is in the doing, and no software has to categorically serve an altruistic purpose or face deletion.
Terry continues,
I discovered a bit of wisdom from which you might benefit. I had hopes of having an innovative file system with meta-data for files, but when I added FAT32 support, I lost enthusiasm because I didn’t like the prospect of having core features which didn’t work everywhere or making an ugly kludge for FAT32 partition such as a meta-data files which Windows would not keep up-to-date. The wisdom is that opening the door to using any standards squelches innovation.
The multicore technique is master/slave instead of SMP. You write your programs to directly control the other cores. This is lots of fun. It is symmetric in that you can do file access and graphics from other cores, but it does not shift tasks automatically to other cores. On a home system, you want the focus application faster and don’t benefit from putting other
applications on other cores because you’re mostly doing one thing at a time, right?LoseThos has a radically innovative and exotic interface you definitely want to have a look at, so give it a whirl in a VMWare session just to experience it, if nothing else.
I’m glad that operating systems like LoseThos still exist, in that it shows that computing can still be a hobby; why is everybody so serious these days? If I want to code an OS that uses interpretive dance as the input method, I should be allowed to do so, companies like Apple be damned.
Please consider giving LoseThos a look and provide feedback via LoseThos’ contact page.
Why people still losing time creating new OSes that looks similar to 80’s ones ?
I they have too much time they can help resolving problems of Linux or any common sub-system.
Resolving issues/bugs help many millions of users, recreating the wheel every time is a huge time loss…
Why did your parents have you? There are billions of people in the world already, could’ve donated all the money from your development to more needy people.
Linux was once a new OS in a sea of other OSes with people saying what’s the point?
You‘ve completely missed the point (and didn’t read the article because I went into it quite a bit), the point is that there doesn’t have to be one. His time is his to spend how he wants; and who knows, he may just end up inventing a bit of code that totally revolutionises the OS world. Yours is not the power to decide.
Now what are you doing on OSnews? There’s Linux bugs to be fixed—quick, quick, hurry!
You are trying to answer by trolling ?
Linux was born in the 1991, almost 20 years ago.
in that time, people were able to hide some weeks then come up with a new OS.
Now things are different.
I am not forcing anyone to not lose his time, but creating an 80’s OS in the 2010 year is none-sense.
But I’m still surprised how you have answered my comment. Next time you will kill people who think different than you do…
I can still hide some weeks and create a new OS… people might not find it as functional as windows or OS X or even Linux, but it can be done.
Quick, someone call the waaaaaahmbulance!
He drew a parallel between a software pet-project and a child, so you conclude he wants to kill people who disagree with him? Damn, how alarmist and melodramatic can you get?
Because It’s fun… and I think that’s exactly what today computers are losing.
I cant say for sure about this OS as I haven’t tried it, but its from these ‘simple’ OS systems that new ideas can be tried and tested.
A new ground-up kernal may well be groundbreaking in some way. To prove/test the method doesn’t mean they have to spend(waste) the time developing it to be a primary/modern OS (network, 3d desktop, GUI!).
Who is to say the new idea in this doesn’t help millions in the future?
Also the experience of building these OS may give the devs a better understanding of how to fix some bugs in linux for you
Because even Damn Small Linux is far too much overhead to keep Dwarf Fortress happy these days?
The developer of this OS develops it for the same reason you masturbate.
Because he can.
I don’t think you could’ve missed the point of this article more than you did. The whole article is about how it’s ok to do things simply because they are fun and don’t have to be the next greatest thing to rule the world.
No kidding, apparently his time is so precious and his opinion so important that it had to be shared even if he obviously did not bother to read the article…
a) Show us where you spend your time in a moral manner.
b) Why do ppl waste their time answering on internet articles?
Spoken like a true believer. I love the way guys try to portray contributing to Linux is some kind of moral imperative, it manages to come off as both insecure jealousy and insane zealotry at the same time.
Terry or “LoseThos” here is a wacky religious troll who frequents various technical forums, and spreads his wisdom.
His reason for not using resolutions above 640×480? he claims that God whispered it in his ear, he would ask seemingly innocuous questions and then randomly type a page full of other “words” he received by God.
I’m not surprised this made the front page, OS development sure is an interesting subject, but, this particular project is quite ridiculous, try reading his website.
Still, maybe he’s just very “eccentric”.. but IMHO “batshit crazy” fits him better.
Or maybe he is just kidding…
If only he was… but alas, he is not.
Heh, I was just going to say “Wow, it sure pays to spam OSnews with posts about your own OS”.
If you cared to read his website, at the VERY FIRST page, it is stated “Since GPU’s vary, LoseThos has no GPU acceleration. This article explains that a GPU is much faster than a CPU. Non-GPU graphics are too slow for high resolutions, so LoseThos will always be 640x480x 16 color. (It takes 1/37th as much CPU power for 640x480x4 compared to 1600x1200x24.)”
Now please quit this religious trolling and go ahead…
Kochise
Terry is banned from discussion here on OSnews because of attacks on users and the staff, but I worked with him to publish this article to extend a peace offering to him in respect of what is clearly an incredible bit of programming work.
Yes, I’m sure a number of OSnews users have an issue or two with him, but can we put that aside and focus on the article.
Although I do think that the LoseThos OS is a nice piece of work, LoseThos Terry is an incredible nutjob. He spammed the OSDev forums about two years ago, disagreeing with about everyone on everything (see e.g. http://forum.osdev.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=18514). I really don’t see why you would want to extend a “peace offering” to an authistic zealot that has no regards for reality. If you want to write feature length articles about alternative hobby OSes, take a look at e.g. SolarOS (http://www.oby.ro/os/index.html) or the like. Equally if not more impressive, and written by sane people.
As already stated, he is banned from discussion on OSnews, and what more, what he does on other sites is none of our business or concern. OSnews is not the Internet police. The article here is to present the work, not the person.
If you would like to write an article about SolarOS, please do. I was not aware of it.
I thought the video sounded a bit like drunken uncle Wally or the Dustin Hoffman character from Rainman.
ASD would explain the “ego”, but as Kroc already said it’s not really any of our business.
Do we judge the technical merits of Oracle DB based purely on Larry Ellison being a complete tool? Or likewise OpenBSD and Theo?
This was a general post, not directed at anyone in particular.
So you are limiting his ability to express his views on OSnews, yet give him a feature length article that consists 50% of direct quotes. Sorry Kroc, that just doesn’t make sense.
I disagree. To see whether someone’s views as expressed in an article are sound or valid, one better looks at the whole picture – even the most deranged people sometimes manage to sound sane.
The work is already a few years old, LoseThos popped up on OSDev two years ago, in – as far as I can see – the exact same state it is in today; not very newsworthy, imho. Also, you did not present his work, you let him present his work himself, by extended quoting without commenting.
That’s sad – I do not mind whether or not you know a certain hobby OS, but I think that when writing about them, or even a single one, you should be able to put things into perspective. Not knowing about other hobby OSes that have outgrown the Hello World state is a definite fault.
You are seeking to simply draw this out as painfully as possible rather than show any balance. I will be locking this thread after this comment as I do not feel that you are capable of reaching a point where you we can discuss the topic instead of debating petty arguments.
Terry was banned from OSnews some time ago due to his conduct. I cooperated with him to publish this article because I’m a nice person and where as nobody was willing to have anything to do with him—like yourself—I believe in giving people a chance under the right circumstances. This article was published because I wanted to. Don’t like that? Go elsewhere.
It’s “quoted†because that is the original (and unique to this article) text Terry wrote for me to be the article itself; I however thought that this would not be adequate enough and instead decided to wrap his text around my own contribution to bolster the article, improve the quality, and bring out the importance of recreational programming, rather than an OS having to strictly have a point. Again, the quoted sections are exclusive content to OSnews, it is simply “quoted†in order to distinguish between my opinions and his.
I put LoseThos in the correct perspective. It’s not trying to be another Linux and it is pretty advanced despite the looks.
You don’t like Terry, you are opposed to him getting attention, and you don’t like me either and have to nitpick everything I’ve said. This is not a discussion, it’s you being an immovable asshat.
I do not think that (badly spelled) word means what you think it means: verifiable sources, please, or you’re maligning a group of people unfairly due to your own ignorance.
“zealot” is a different word and meaning from what you seem to be lumping in as a trait, and OCD tendencies or being an extremist about a pet cause/project is also not connected with what you think it means. Sometimes, people just like to toot their own horns: surely you don’t do that in regards to anything you do, do you?
If you run out of arguments, resort to the spelling…
As with many mental disorders, the name of the disorder can also be used for people that exhibit characteristic traits for that disorder. I do not know for certain the guy suffers from autism, but he sure shows many signs.
Gosh, really. I used “zealot” here as “fanatic”, and no, I’m not talking about being fanatical about ones own project, but being fanatical about all the details of the project, even when rightly critisized (e.g. the rather ridiculous idea that on modern video cards 640×480 in 16 colour mode is faster than, say, 640×480 in 16-bit true colour).
In your uneducated estimation with zero experience with him personally (and likely very little if any with others on the spectrum), yes, he shows many signs: no doubt, someone looking at your foolish self-righteous behavior could conclude many interesting things, too. What you did was an uneducated attack on the person that is your focus, rather than the work of that person, and you come to conclusions with zero backing other than your uneducated and ignorant guess: if you had any clue whatsoever, you would at least have taken some care to spell the word correctly, for a start, as someone who was qualified would have no problem doing that.
Ok, so the guy likes things simple, and he has a certain aesthetic in regards to what he thinks is best: so what? So he argues about that design aesthetic with gusto: so what? So he gets a bit extreme in his viewpoints: wait, are you saying you don’t get at all extreme about your viewpoints, or is it you think you’re above that and balanced? Let’s face it: most people aren’t perfectly objective about themselves, and I don’t claim to be an exception to that: people tend to be blind to their own faults, and often to their own strengths, and we all need to give others the benefit of the doubt when it comes to their motivation and trying to understand their personality, or at least the minimal facets of their personalities that we see reflected by their works and what makes it to print, video, or whatever medium, as all media is a statistically insignificant representation of the nature of a person, or else we would rightly conclude many curious things about actors and actresses.
Judge the works of a person for the works of the person: don’t judge the person by your limited field of vision without the light of true knowledge about them from afar. I see you posted no links to justify your judgment of him: you have no data of value. Maybe he’s unpleasant in all facets of life, or perhaps he rubs people’s fur the wrong way for a certain number of online public facets: the facts are not in evidence either way. What is in clear evidence is you making a sweeping judgment about him, showing a lack of real experience and knowledge in the field in which you judge him, and, for all you know, he may take the statements you make as libel, and haul you to court, in which case, I’d laugh. Either that, or he might decide to go on a personal vendetta and hunt you down online and spread crap about you and your nature.
I won’t comment on most of this rant, apparently I’ve hit a sensitive spot. However, “zero experience” is just not true, or you’d have to define “personally” as “in real life”. The latter I cannot claim, but as a regular of the OSDev forums, I can assure you I have had more than enough experience with the guy to ascertain that this is not someone you want to deal with.
Reinventing the wheel is mostly just borring. Creating another way to move stuff based on your own designs, is Fun! However, I completely disagree with his approach to SMP, and consequently must write my own operating system from scratch in Eifell.
Once Eiffel has good concurrency support (either a extended scoop approach or something completely different like for example a csp based solution) it would be worth a try
Aside from the guy sounding like he’s been locked in a basement for waaaay too long (I escaped! It’s nice outside!) this is a really really cool project.
Quote of the video, “because signed is pretty silly isn’t it?”
I appreciate the beauty of what this fella has done.
The master-slave multicore is -really- interesting to me. I wanted to do something like that back when multi-processor desktops (especially macs) first started popping up.
I actually found this *pretty damn* interesting and definitely a worthwhile feature on OSNews. Watching the screencast is certainly worthwhile.