Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 30th May 2006 16:29 UTC, submitted by dylansmrjones
OSNews, Generic OSes The Spoon microkernel has as one of its goals: "A stable and efficient microkernel with clearly defined interfaces which provide all the necessary functions needed to build a modern and complete operating system on top." The project's progress page lists the latest achievements, and there's even a screenshot page.
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Okay... My take on it.
by dylansmrjones on Tue 30th May 2006 21:11 UTC
dylansmrjones
Member since:
2005-10-02

I submitted this story because I've following the spoon microkernel for the last couple of years, and have often wondered why it was mentioned so little in here.

I was unsure whether anything had been submitted on the kernel before, and I knew for sure I hadn't seen anything on OSN for a very long while, apart from a few comments here and there, so I decided to submit it, just in case somebody else might be interested in this kernel.

Durand John Miller has been working on his hobby "research" project for several years, and I find it entertaining to follow his progress "blog", and it contains quite a few eye openers as well.

It may be that it doesn't qualify as news in the strict sense, but on the other hand, all newspapers print things that doesn't qualify as news. There are also things as interviews, views, reviews etc.

I had hoped for a discussion on the kernel's technical merits, but I was obviously embarrasingly naïve in that regard.

@ AnalystX -> What do you think of Miller's approach in regard to devfs? Or his coding style? Or his approach in libunix?

That's the kind of discussion _I_ was hoping for. But I made a fool of myself again - I'm getting quite good at that ;)

BTW: Sorry for submitting "news" unworthy for your eyes ( not being sarcastic at all... nooooo... I would never be that ;) )

And yes, I like "obscure" systems. Obscurity is fun ;)

Apart from this rant, I just want to say that a lot of other persons in this thread, incl. Thom, already have written pretty much what I think.

[EDITED:] I fixed one typo.

Edited 2006-05-30 21:13

RE: Okay... My take on it.
by AnalystX on Tue 30th May 2006 21:40 in reply to "Okay... My take on it."
AnalystX Member since:
2006-01-11

'It may be that it doesn't qualify as news in the strict sense'

Thank you for your sincerity. If it were an editorial I wouldn't have asked what the news was. I find things like this interesting too (I modded you up for that reason), but when it comes down to getting the news quickly, I like just knowing "where" the news is.

'There are also things as interviews, views, reviews etc.'

You are correct. That's why there are sections for those things: Interviews, Editorials, Meta Blog.

'I had hoped for a discussion on the kernel's technical merits'

The fact that this hasn't happened yet, seems to indicate people are more interested in attacking someone that states what should be obvious. For those that said I should have just skipped the article and not posted, you are hypocrites. You could have just skipped reading my post, but you didn't.

'Sorry for submitting "news" unworthy for your eyes'

What would have been nice is if this was submitted as an editorial with more information about what's going on with the project. There are very few details in the progress section. I would have still read it, but at some other time since it isn't time sensitive (as news is expected to be).

'What do you think of Miller's approach in regard to devfs?'

I think it's interesting. I like the idea of a file system for devices. I think more needs to be written up about this kernel though. That's why this would make a perfect editorial.

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 0

dylansmrjones Member since:
2005-10-02

Hey guys (and gals).

Don't mod his post down. This one does not deserve it. His earlier posts are a different issue.

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 1

dylansmrjones Member since:
2005-10-02

Thank you for your sincerity. If it were an editorial I wouldn't have asked what the news was. I find things like this interesting too (I modded you up for that reason), but when it comes down to getting the news quickly, I like just knowing "where" the news is.

As you very well know, here on OSN all articles are posted under the common hat "News".

"Features", "Interviews" and "Editorials" are merely subsections to the common hat "News".

And I did post it as news, because I wrote about the latest progress (some of it from yesterday... well, yesterday's yesterday ;)

Besides that, your first posts were somewhat unfortunate (to put it mildly) if all you wanted, was this post to be placed "properly".

The fact that this hasn't happened yet, seems to indicate people are more interested in attacking someone that states what should be obvious. For those that said I should have just skipped the article and not posted, you are hypocrites. You could have just skipped reading my post, but you didn't.

Well, you did come out in a pretty offensive manner, going far beyond what was reasonable, if all you wanted was a "proper placement" (in your eyes).

What would have been nice is if this was submitted as an editorial with more information about what's going on with the project. There are very few details in the progress section. I would have still read it, but at some other time since it isn't time sensitive (as news is expected to be).

Well, perhaps somebody is studying spoon much closer now, after this submission, and will write an editorial. Who knows? The progress pages are going several years back, and nobody prevents people from downloading the source and study it.

Yes, devfs is interesting, but I wonder how it affects spoon's capability to play videos, and how the heck it did it before ;)

Another, perhaps more interesting element is libUNIX. It won't affect OS'es like SkyOS, Syllable and Haiku and other already POSIX compatible OS'es, but I believe it would be quite useful for other tiny early stage OS'es.

And yes, an editorial would be nice. Are you going to write it? ;)

[EDIT:] Fixed a typo.

Edited 2006-05-30 22:11

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 1

Earl Colby pottinger Member since:
2005-07-06

> dylansmrjones:
> I submitted this story because I've following the spoon microkernel for the last couple of years, and have often wondered why it was mentioned so little in here.

Well, I for one am glad you submitted it. I must of miss the old posts because this is the first I remember hearing of it. I personally have no use for 'Spoon' but I like know about such things, you never know when it will come in handy to point out as the solution to some-else's problem. And sometime just looking at a diffirent OS like this clues you into something you don't understand about the one you are using. Thanks for submitting.

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 1

RE: Okay... My take on it.
by Vanders on Wed 31st May 2006 08:53 in reply to "Okay... My take on it."
Vanders Member since:
2005-07-06

From the basic discription on the website, streaming sounds like an interesting idea where the kernel/device driver will push events up into user-space, rather than having the user-space code poll for events. It's an interesting approach and I always like to see this sort of approach of taking an idea and genericising it; you can discover all sorts of interesting ways of using a previously limited feature.

I'm not too convinced by libunix though. An OS is usually either POSIX compliant or it isn't. Writing a POSIX compatability layer over a non-POSIX kernel can be done but it usually ends up being so system specific that you may as well write a seperate layer for each system instead of trying to create a portable one.

His SMP/APIC code works, too.

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 3