The Syllable project has published the second version of the Linux-based Syllable Server. A number of fixes were made, most notably to terminal initialisation and printing. GhostScript is included now. Some of the Syllable-specific initialisation scripts are executed now. Many packages were updated, including GLibC, CoreUtils, BASh, ORCA and the printing packages. Several new packages were added. IPTables is included, so Syllable Server can be used to build a firewall. The wireless tools are included for configuring wireless networks. The ALSA userspace library and tools were added to provide
full access to the audio system, instead of relying on OSS emulation. All separate binary packages for Server 0.1 are still valid on Server 0.2. On Syllable, binary compatibility is maintained as much as possible. [Screenshot of Syllable Server running on Syllable Desktop, installation and usage instructions, change log, torrent (preferred), installation package (75 MB 7-Zip archive).]
Really good to see Syllable progressing nicely!
I was particularly interested to see them include Orca as the main scripting language. Good on them for daring to be a bit different!
Orca (for those who haven’t heard of it) is an open-source “work-alike” of the Rebol programming language. Orca and Rebol look (to me) like an interesting blend of Forth and Python. Take the concise nature of Forth and add the user-friendliness of Python and you might end up with something like Orca / Rebol.
Orca is still in its early days, but shows good potential. Rebol itself packs a *massive* amount of power into a very small size, and hopefully Orca can do the same.
Edited 2007-12-14 23:18
Is that the Syllable GUI running on top of X.ORG or is it a separate graphical operating environment running on top of Linux just like Mac OS X on top of BSD (totally separate of X.ORG)
The screenshot shows Syllable Server running in Bochs on a Syllable Desktop system. In the installation and usage instructions it says “- Most notably, Syllable Server doesn’t have the graphical environment from Syllable Desktop yet.” IIRC, they intend to implement their GUI system without using X.org, but I don’t think it’s ready yet.
So, anyone has any idea of what parts of Syllable are in fact running over the Linux kernel? The post at syllable.org only talks about Linux packages.
And yes, IIRC, the GUI won’t use X but the frame buffer.
From what I can tell it’s still pretty close to a basic Linux system. The tree under usr/ has been changed significantly (each package gets its own directory, with its own subdirectories for bin/ lib/ documentation/ and so on).
I haven’t spent much time with the 0.2 release yet, but I will tomorrow. If I find anything that’s definitely from Syllable Desktop, I’ll report back.
Sorry I keep asking questions, I don’t really have time to give it myself a try:
Maybe I got it wrong, but that means that, for example, two binaries that need the same libX.so will have each one a copy of the lib? If that’s the case well… ugh
A quick check reveals that there is a /usr/index/lib directory which has symlinks to the actual libraries. The binaries appear to be tied to the symlinks, allowing just one copy of the library to be installed.
Thanks for the info
As long as the basic system libraries cover all typically required functionality, only a few apps should need custom libraries. It seems to work well enough on OSX.
I’m all for it if it prevents problems like the libexpat fiasco a few months ago on Gentoo.
their amazing Desktop OS, rather than pour so much effort into a Linux distro.
We can do both. The next release of Desktop should be ready soon (I’m testing and fixing the last development build right now, in fact).
Server will start to become really interesting once we get the appserver running on it and start to integrate Server & Desktop together.