FreeVMS is an OpenVMS-like operating system which can run on several architectures like i386, PPC, Alpha, and many others. CONFIG_VMS can now execute on ODS-2. GRUB with ODS-2 support was added, and diskimage builder was updated accordingly. The kernel can also be booted from ODS-2. Partition support for both ODS-2 and Ext2 was improved. Directory creation functionality for ODS-2 was implemented. In CONFIG_VMS, a partition related bug with RMS Ext2 read and write was fixed. A problem in which Init set 000000.dir fat ffbyte to length when it should be 0 was fixed.
FreeVMS 0.1.0 Released
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What is ODS-2? What do you mean by CONFIG_VMS? This doesn’t make any sense.
we already have too many unix clones and clones of toy OSes (BEos and Windows) it’s time for more big iron OSes. Anyone working on a s/930 os?
“What is ODS-2?”
Its in the same context as Ext2 and for a reason given its a filesystem for VMS.
See for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenVMS_filesystem
You could have used Google…
@ CaptainPinko yes, NetBSD is working on it. Debian has a port. IIRC even IBM was working on that in the Linux kernel and GCC.
Try this
http://www.freevms.org/
“The VMS (Virtual Memory System) operating system is available only on VAX and Alpha processors,…”
No longer true. HP ported it to the Itanium (which is going nowhere).
Porting OpenVMS from scratch is not an overnight undertaking. Looking over the tasklist it looks like the project strives for running OpenVMS apps on FreeVMS as drop-ins. Sorry to be a putdown – but why? OpenVMS will be around for a while because of inertia. But I don’t see a growth potential. Why would anyone pick OpenVMS or FreeVMS over Linux, Unix or Windows for a new installation?
Except – OpenVMS apps are written in a variety of languages – C, C++, Fortran, Cobol, Pascal, Ada, Basic, PL/1, Bliss, Macro, etc. But writing a missing compiler for Linux seems like the shorter route to me.
Or contact HP. Maybe they are interested in a “free” port to i386 and would provide Alpha/Itanium source for a start? Maybe even establish an OSDL for the project?
Or – now that WinNT and descendants were derived largely from OpenVMS – a lot of the documented kernel internals even have OpenVMS names – then why not instead spend the energy on making a free implementation of Windows?
“No longer true. HP ported it to the Itanium (which is going nowhere).”
I did not knew that port was already available. Is it? Source?
“now that WinNT and descendants were derived largely from OpenVMS”
Windows NT is not derived from OpenVMS. A derived work is based on the very same code; OpenVMS was not. Instead, the initial Windows NT kernel was merely designed by some of the same folks as those who designed OpenVMS. Windows NT went its own way after that…
“then why not instead spend the energy on making a free implementation of Windows?”
Because Windows sucks? If you want to contribute to a free implementation of Windows go ahead at http://www.reactos.com or http://www.winehq.org
I worked about 3 years with vax /openvms and OpenVMS is not a unix os, it’s compleetle different.
The one thing I remember about using a VAX was that nifty file by date thing. If they bring back keyboards with gold keys I’d be entirely sold
Uhhhh… Wasn’t Windows based on cp/m?
“The one thing I remember about using a VAX was that nifty file by date thing.”
You remember revisions too? ‘CVS in the filesystem’. Gentoo and APT do this with /etc, but not very clean (not on filesystem layer) and not so obvious (it uses namespace instead of numbers), only for /etc but by default though. Seriously, i’d kill for getting this in a native filesystem.
Or how about logging in to another machine of a cluster by changing your shell variable.
Hehe and no, MSDOS was based on CP/M. Windows 3.x and 9x still were dependant on MSDOS though.
(A friend of mine is VAX/VMS guru.)
Btw check out SIMH, a VAX emulator. Together with a hobbyist license you can learn yourself more about VMS. Or use FreeVMS, or telnet to DECUS.
No, man. That would be MS-DOS. Actually MS-DOS it is derived from QOS if I remember correctly, but its functionality resembles CP/M.
What version of Windows are you talking about? Anyways, most GUI-based OSes owes some credit to XEROX.
Hello,
I was wondering if any of the FreeVMS have taken a look at how we have done some stuff in ReactOS. If I understand my history correctly the Windows NT/2K/etc is designed after VMS so maybe some parts of ReactOS might be of use.
The FreeVMS project is definitely interesting but it is not feature rich enough to really work with.
Using the Simh emulator on Linux, I have installed a fully functioning VAX node.
Speed on the emulated environment is excellent and allows one to retire older hardware and conserve space/power.
If anyone is interested in learning more about this, please let me know.
I’ve been doing administration and programming work on VMS for over 17 years and I’ve found Simh to be an excellent solution.
VMS from what i understand is a very powerful OS. Porting it to i386 and making it freely available is great news. If i was a coder i would definitely jump on this project.
So when will freevms enable me to reinstall my baby? =)
someBSD has no disk support, yet. Bootp is only that much fun..
FreeVMS is rather poor in developers. As far as I know there is one main developer and 2 or 3 contributors. There is some interest in ReactOS, or at least there was some in the passed, but not enough developer power to do anything about it. Besides that, there was the decision to stick with the current version Linux that FreeVMS is based on since there just isn’t the man power to port the patches towards either Linux 2.6.x or NetBSD.
for a unix type os…
but honestly, doesn’t the work done in modifying it outweigh the advantages when you’re aiming in an entirely different direction?
i would think this type of thing is one place where starting from scratch would be easier instead of harder…..
heck, i would think even writing a nice little subsystem on top of one of the microkernels would be easier
I guess they had two reasons for using a preexisting kernel. First, they didn’t have to write all the drivers, and second, from what I’ve read they would need to implement some Unix stuff anyway to be compatible with the latest OpenVMS.
Toy OS’s?! Why I oughtta…!
I am a big VMS fan (and BeOS fan, btw) but I don’t really see a VMS clone making any headway in a world where Linux is becoming more and more polished everyday. It would be WICKED cool if someone wrote a VAX BASIC and VAX BLISS compiler for Linux tho’!!!
Mike
“Uhhhh… Wasn’t Windows based on cp/m?”
No, Windows was originally just a graphical shell on top of MS-DOS. MS-DOS was based on QDOS, which was written by Tim Paterson while at SCP, and was bought by MS.
QDOS was a clone of CP/M, which was written by Gary Kildall of Digital Research (originally Intergalactic Digital Research).
David Cutler, the designer of VMS (and RSX-11M, my all-time favorite OS), left DEC to lead the Windows NT development team at MS in the late ’80s. This story is documented in the book “Showstopper” by Pascal Zachary.