Re: [coLinux-devel] Re: Posix Subsystem for ReactOS - Project 2010

[Karim Y. <ka...@op...>]

Ian C. Blenke wrote:
> Getting a Linux/x86 native host port working would be a great first
> step. Is anyone actively working on this at the moment? I would love to
> help any way I can.

As I was saying on the LKML a few days ago, I've extensively researched
this topic and have written a few papers explaining how this could be
done using a nanokernel. One of the papers I wrote covers the use of
such a nanokernel to easily obtain SMP-clusters with Linux. Much of
what I cover in that paper can be reused as-is and simplified for a UP
system. Currently there already exists the nanokernel code to share
interrupts via a pipeline. What remains is code that can:
- Allocate separate physical regions
- Switch between the OS instances

Dan's work already provides some of this and I'd be quite happy to see
someone take this and extend the existing Adeos nanokernel in this
direction.

Here are some relevant URLs:
http://www.opersys.com/adeos/index.html (the papers)
http://www.adeos.org (the project's site)
Some relevant LKML postings:
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=102309348817485&w=2
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=106273515411971&w=2
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=107509323428966&w=2
(forget the first paragraph of that last posting, Dan pointed out
that I wasn't reading the coLinux code right in a later reply.)

Basically, the idea is to change Linux the least possible while still
being able to run multiple copies of it on the same machine. I think
this is easily done for someone who has the time (I personally don't
have the bandwidth). The greatest asset of the above approach is that
it's practically hardware-independent and should therefore not be
limited to x86.

Karim
-- 
Author, Speaker, Developer, Consultant
Pushing Embedded and Real-Time Linux Systems Beyond the Limits
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