trion-kernel-dev — Discusses the kernel development.

Re: [Trion-kernel-dev] Please "close" the lists.

[Stephen W. <ste...@xa...>]

On 22/11/06 10:14, Daniel Raffler wrote:
> > I've been removing the posts as I find time but there's no way to ban
> > the spammers without marking the list as "only members can post".
>
> I'm afraid you got me wrong: What I really meant was the phpBB forum
> (trion.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=3D3) on our website. As far=
 as
> I know you're the only admin who could remove the spam that was posted
> there some time ago. If possible please also ban users number 0 though 16
>  from the board (trion.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/memberlist.php - the urls a=
re
> spam/fraud related).

Oh, okay.  Done.

Should we just get rid of the forum?  =20

=2D-smw

Re: [Trion-kernel-dev] Please "close" the lists.

[Daniel R. <cos...@gm...>]

> I've been removing the posts as I find time but there's no way to ban
> the spammers without marking the list as "only members can post".

I'm afraid you got me wrong: What I really meant was the phpBB forum  =

(trion.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=3D3) on our website. As fa=
r as  =

I know you're the only admin who could remove the spam that was posted  =

there some time ago. If possible please also ban users number 0 though 1=
6  =

 from the board (trion.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/memberlist.php - the urls =
are  =

spam/fraud related).

regards,
cosmo86

Re: [Trion-kernel-dev] Please "close" the lists.

[Stephen W. <ste...@xa...>]

On 22/11/06 08:19, Daniel Raffler wrote:
>
> There seem to be several spam posts in the forum aswell. Maybe somebody
> with administrator access could remove these posts and ban the users that
> wrote the messages ?

I've been removing the posts as I find time (you don't have to be the list=
=20
administrator to do that) but there's no way to ban the spammers without=20
marking the list as "only members can post.".  It seems it's just SourceFor=
ge=20
is allowing more spam through to mailing lists since they had to adjust the=
ir=20
filter policies to work with Yahoo and Hotmail.

=2D-smw

Re: [Trion-kernel-dev] Please "close" the lists.

[Daniel R. <cos...@gm...>]

> Wouter, as far as I can see you're the only one with administrative  
> access to the list.

You can access the mailman interface here:  
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/admin/trion-kernel-dev

There seem to be several spam posts in the forum aswell. Maybe somebody  
with administrator access could remove these posts and ban the users that  
wrote the messages ?

regards,
Daniel

Re: [Trion-kernel-dev] Please "close" the lists.

[Stephen W. <ste...@xa...>]

On 21/11/06 13:41, tr...@al... wrote:
> I'd like to ask the Trion mailing lists administrator/owner to please
> close the lists so that only subscribers can post to it. This may seem an
> unfriendly thing to do, but it'll help limit the amount of spam we get on
> the list, which seems to be increasing considerably as of late.

Wouter, as far as I can see you're the only one with administrative access =
to=20
the list.  Could you do this please?

=2D-smw

[Trion-kernel-dev] Please "close" the lists.

[<tr...@al...>]

I'd like to ask the Trion mailing lists administrator/owner to please 
close the lists so that only subscribers can post to it. This may seem an 
unfriendly thing to do, but it'll help limit the amount of spam we get on 
the list, which seems to be increasing considerably as of late.

Thank you,
Raymond Rodgers

Re: [Trion-kernel-dev] To all project members of Trion

[Stephen M. W. <ste...@br...>]

On 17/10/06 15:52, Wouter Demuynck wrote:
> Hello everybody,

Hey, look who's back!

> I hope I can revamp the website if anyone agrees (if
> somebody is a good PHP-hacker, please let me know, I'll take on design and
> stuff while him or her can do the backend coding and stuff). And I also
> hope to get back into kernel development after that. Can anyone give me a
> brief status of the project up till now?

Start by reviewing the mailing list archive at SourceForge, going back the 
last month or so.  That would give you the best idea of what's going on.  In 
the meantime, any ideas about the website would be good.  I tried setting up 
a set of forums and a wiki but I'm no web programmer.  Human interaction, 
feh.

> Again, I am sorry for being away for so long, finishing my studies, getting
> my life on track and stuff. (I'm moving to live with my girlfriend the end
> of this week and stuff).

Moving in with your girlfriend.  So much for getting back to active project 
participation.  Good luck with that.

-- 
Stephen M. Webb
ste...@br...

[Trion-kernel-dev] To all project members of Trion

[Wouter D. <wou...@gm...>]

Hello everybody,

 

 

I know I have been away for a while now, but I have been following the
project lately. I am really busy at work now (I now work as an ASP.NET
Developer at a small company here in Belgium, VB.NET though, put the check
is there every month hey :p). Anyways, I hope the project didn't die and if
someone is still out there and in active development, I'm in for some help
if anyone's up to. I hope I can revamp the website if anyone agrees (if
somebody is a good PHP-hacker, please let me know, I'll take on design and
stuff while him or her can do the backend coding and stuff). And I also hope
to get back into kernel development after that. Can anyone give me a brief
status of the project up till now?

 

Again, I am sorry for being away for so long, finishing my studies, getting
my life on track and stuff. (I'm moving to live with my girlfriend the end
of this week and stuff) . Anyways, if anyone reads this, please feel free to
contact me.

 

Regards,

 

 

Wouter

 

Re: [Trion-kernel-dev] Is the project still active?

[Daniel R. <cos...@gm...>]

> That's great.  Any idea when you'll have something for us?  Is there
> anything we can do to help?

Before it makes any sense to continue programming, the source has to get  
prepared for the next step. This means that the new classes have to get  
integrated into the old codebase, and that some of the old code must get  
adapted. I've already started sweeping throught the code some week ago and  
a lot of these fixes are by now already done. Once the new code is  
complete and (halfway) stable I'll commit it to the CVS and we can assign  
coding jobs. It's kind of hard to say how long exactly it's going to take,  
but I guess that it shouldn't be any longer than 1.5 weeks (mind that I'll  
be all busy with school-related-stuff this weekend)

> A 'choose a project' list.  Daniel, you seem to have the best idea
> about what needs to be done still, could you start such a list  
> circulating?

Certainly - once the code is commited I can write a list of jobs that have  
to be done sooner or later. The top-priority at the moment should be the  
memory system and the object classes list/map as they're a requirement for  
the rest of the upper kernel layers (tasks, multiplexion). As this  
subsystem depends on little else in the kernel, it shouldn't be to hard,  
even for somebody not perfectly familiar with the rest of the code, to  
write this portion.

regards,
cosmo86

Re: [Trion-kernel-dev] Is the project still active?

[Stephen M. W. <ste...@br...>]

Daniel Raffler wrote:
> 
>> Stephen M. Webb wrote:
>> I think the next major task in the kernel is to work the scheduler and  
>> dispatcher.
> 
> Before we can tackle that some more work on the kernel memory manager will  
> be needed. I've already finished most of the paper-work for the kernel  
> memory system, so that it shouldn't take too long until I can present some  
> more details.

That's great.  Any idea when you'll have something for us?  Is there 
anything we can do to help?

>> Sergey Kuznetsov wrote:
>> What if we will make some brain storm here ( I love brainstorming ) what
>> do we need on the web-site, and later make the voting on the topics and
>> will assign priorities on each feature.

> b) The site should describe the goals of the kernel in much greater  
> detail. Right now there're only a couple of rather generic sentences about  
> our design on the page. Developers however want to know much more about a  
> project before they might consider to join: Why should I join Trion and  
> not some other sourceforge  project ?

Anyone willing to have a go at a first (or, um, maybe second) draft?

> c) A project history and a roadmap for the next 6-12 months should give  
> the visitors an impression of the current state of the project. It can  
> also help us to keep track of the development as we plan in the long term.  
> This section should get updated regularly as the development proceeds. It  
> could even be an alternative to the not-so-exiting news sections that most  
> other projects have.

Okay, a roadmap/project plan and a news section.  The roadmap should 
have a estimated percent complete and estimated time-to-complete.

> d) The "What Can I Do?" section should in my opinion be more specific. We  
> don't need somebody to do anything, but a developer that know language X  
> and has experience with Y to write module Z. The more specific the given  
> information, the easier it is for a potential developer to imagine his  
> tasks. Visitores interested in the project would no longer have to  
> register to the mailing list in order to find out what exactly they could  
> contribute.

Yes.  A 'choose a project' list.  Daniel, you seem to have the best idea 
about what needs to be done still, could you start such a list circulating?

> e) A member page with some private information about the regulars might  
> give the project a personal touch. After having leart a bit about the  
> other team-members, one might be less hesitant to get into contact with  
> the team.

That's one of the things the wiki is good for.

> If he's really new to OS develpment chances are that he doesn't know about  
> the toolchain or has no experience with installing bochs. It would  
> probably also be a good idea to add a number of such beginner tutorials to  
> the wiki.

Yes.  Hmmm, perhaps I'll work on that.

--
smw

Re: [Trion-kernel-dev] Is the project still active?

[Daniel R. <cos...@gm...>]

> Christopher Bertels wrote:
> So my question is: is trion still being developed and if yes, could i  
> help out
> in programming? i will continue reading my book on os design and i'd  
> like to
> help out wherever i can, even if it's the more easy stuff.

Stephen is right when he says that the project does not always develop as  
fast as it could. Nevertheless we also made some considerable progess  
lately, and I still haven't lost my hope that Trion really will take off  
one fine day. Operating system development is a difficult task, maybe it  
just takes some time until you can see the results.

> Stephen M. Webb wrote:
> Heh, yeah, the project is sort of dozing off and on.  Most of thecurrent  
> work on v0.2 was done by Daniel Raffler in a brief flurry ofwork a few  
> months ago.

The reason for my rather errratic coding cycles is that I really have some  
problems stuffing all the theory in my mind into a concrete  
implementation. The nankernel design leads to an extremly "dense" nucleus  
as a lot of decisions with potentially high impact have to be made at an  
early stage. Almost all of the the code I contributed during the first 4-5  
month of the year was hardare related and merely built an abstraction  
layer for the upper components of the nucleus. When I finished with this  
stage I had to return to pencil and paper sketches in order to design the  
rest of the implementation. By now I've finished most of the planning, so  
that I'm really confident that I can continue coding and documenting  
anytime soon.

> Stephen M. Webb wrote:
> I think the next major task in the kernel is to work the scheduler and  
> dispatcher.

Before we can tackle that some more work on the kernel memory manager will  
be needed. I've already finished most of the paper-work for the kernel  
memory system, so that it shouldn't take too long until I can present some  
more details.

> Stephen M. Webb wrote:
> I still think in the coming era of multicore hardware a new OS will rise  
> up.

With the first quadcore getting released just next month, there's probably  
no denying anymore that multi-cores system will be the future. What impact  
this will have on operating system designs is however hard to say. The  
most obvious changes should be in scheduling, but I could also imagine  
that many other areas will be affected indirectly. It's also possible that  
our nanokernel architecture turns out to have some more advantages on such  
machines as it makes the system more reentrant and modular. This should  
allow a more parallel processing of system task, which is the key to high  
performance on multicore systems.

Nevertheless it's in the end always the user applications that make the  
difference: A game that doesn't support multiprocessing on Windows, won't  
perform much better on trion, even if we had the superior multicore  
support. If we're going to lean towards MP systems as our target, we must  
design the whole platform (kernel, drivers, servers, api, libraries,  
programming techniques) with parallel processing on our minds.

> Sergey Kuznetsov wrote:
> I feel that in the future we will have big computer clusters who
> will do the main work, and we will have lots of embedded
> thin clients with plenty of bandwidth and cheap not powerful CPUs (
> probably as a part of powerful GPU) so all calculations will be
> offloaded to that CPU clusters, and pre-cooked data will flow as
> compined video-sound stream to the thin clients.

It's not that I've never thought about this idea. Even today such a  
computing farm could pay off for most average users that hardly ever use  
their computer for anthing more expensive that browsing the internet or  
writing some word documents. They could pay their service per volume or as  
a flatrate and the cluster centre would provide them with the necessary  
computing power. As such users don't need a whole computer of their own,  
the computing centre wouldn't have to buy that much hardware (200  
computers for 1000 clients) and could thus sell its services at a  
relativly cheap rate. For the more expensive applications (gaming, video  
editing, etc) it wouldn't pay off as each client would have to be given  
it's own node in the cluster. As our need for computing time grows at  
least as fast as technological progress increases our resources I actually  
doubt that this will ever change.

In a few decades average users might indeed use such services, while power  
users will in my opinion always rely on their own hardware. After all most  
of use still use their own car rather than public transport and owners of  
big farms don't borrow their machines from the community.

As a goal for trion I thus don't know if cluster computing is really such  
a good idea. It's not only that we would be writing software for a harware  
that's still far away, but also that I frankly don't know in what respects  
an operating system for such a platform would have to be different. My  
impression always was that clusters can be handled just fine on the user  
level. A server receives all request and then distributes them among its  
nodes. Both server and client applications are quite simple programs that  
shouldn't require any support by the kernel.

> Sergey Kuznetsov wrote:
> I like the idea and it would be nice to implement some ideas I
> shared here two years ago (universal byte-code and so on)

What's the point of having a universal byte-code if the sole remaining  
mainstream architecure is x86-64 ? The only areas where other platforms  
might be used are science, video consoles and possibly IA-64 servers.  
Apart from these most exotic architecures seem to be quite dead nowadays.  
Also note that I'm not sure to what extend the operating system really has  
to support cross platform compatibility. From what I can tell both Java  
and CLI seem to work just fine without additional kernel support.

> Sergey Kuznetsov wrote:
> What if we will make some brain storm here ( I love brainstorming ) what
> do we need on the web-site, and later make the voting on the topics and
> will assign priorities on each feature.

In my opinion the main purpose of the site right now is to present the  
project and to recruit developers. For that we don't need a fancy polling  
system, but a simple site that gives a concise (yet complete) description  
of the project providing the visitor with all the information he might  
need.

a) Providing a couple of screen-shots might catch the visitors' attention.  
If screens are available the user at least gets the impression that the  
project is alive and has a code-base that has already reached a certain  
maturity.
b) The site should describe the goals of the kernel in much greater  
detail. Right now there're only a couple of rather generic sentences about  
our design on the page. Developers however want to know much more about a  
project before they might consider to join: Why should I join Trion and  
not some other sourceforge  project ?
c) A project history and a roadmap for the next 6-12 months should give  
the visitors an impression of the current state of the project. It can  
also help us to keep track of the development as we plan in the long term.  
This section should get updated regularly as the development proceeds. It  
could even be an alternative to the not-so-exiting news sections that most  
other projects have.
d) The "What Can I Do?" section should in my opinion be more specific. We  
don't need somebody to do anything, but a developer that know language X  
and has experience with Y to write module Z. The more specific the given  
information, the easier it is for a potential developer to imagine his  
tasks. Visitores interested in the project would no longer have to  
register to the mailing list in order to find out what exactly they could  
contribute.
e) A member page with some private information about the regulars might  
give the project a personal touch. After having leart a bit about the  
other team-members, one might be less hesitant to get into contact with  
the team.

> Stephen M. Webb wrote:
> The best place to start is to build the kernel from source, create  
> yourself a
> floppy or CD and boot your own computer, just to get the hang of it.   
> You can
> also boot the kernel using bochs or, I hear, vmware.  Use the v0.2  
> branch in CVS.

If he's really new to OS develpment chances are that he doesn't know about  
the toolchain or has no experience with installing bochs. It would  
probably also be a good idea to add a number of such beginner tutorials to  
the wiki.

> I'm not a big fan of forums:  I would prefer using the mailinglist for  
> support but I'm open on that count.

I second using the mailing list for development purposes. It has the big  
advantage that every member is reached when something new gets posted,  
while a topic in the forum might not be read by everybody for days or even  
weeks.

> Jeff wrote a long time ago:
> It would be nice if we could use a localized toolchain. Obviously I
> can add in the directories into the path, but does GCC make any
> assumptions about where to find files?

Just in case that this is still an issue: Including the cross-compiler  
directory in your PATH does the job. I've been using this method myself  
and gcc never had any problems finding its files.

regards,
Daniel

Re: [Trion-kernel-dev] Is the project still active?

[Stephen M. W. <ste...@br...>]

Sergey Kuznetsov wrote:
> What if we will make some brain storm here ( I love brainstorming ) what
> do we need on the web-site,
> and later make the voting on the topics and will assign priorities on
> each feature.
> 
> When we will agree what features nd information we need there, it will
> be way easier to implement it.
> Later we will need some kind of bug tracker and so on, so on, so on.

Agreed.

I'll get the ball rolling by listing what I think should be available.

The starting point is the home page.  This page should contain static 
areas with a brief description of what Trion is and links to other pages 
including but not limited to the following.

(1) downloading Trion (source snapshot, devkit for Win32 & Linux)

(2) the SourceForge project page for (2.1) bug tracking and (2.2) 
contact information,

(3) documentation (a wiki seems good for this)

(4) a (dynamic) news display for posting recent news items for the 
project in general.

Contact information and how-to-contribute information should also be 
repeated on the web page, probably through a secondary page.

We have three target audiences I would like to address in the long run.

(1) kernel developers
(2) application developers
(3) application users

I think at this point all we really need to be concerned with is kernel 
developers, but once a "shell" is up and running (whatever that may mean 
for our purposes), application developers will become very important. 
Once the kernel is shellable, we can start worrying about voting for 
features and so on, but there's no point until I can get a userspace 
hello-world app appearing on my monitor.

I think for the short run the bug tracking through SourceForge works 
well.  I'm not a big fan of forums:  I would prefer using the mailing 
list for support but I'm open on that count.  The wiki concept works 
well for documentation as its developing and can be captured later into 
a more formally published form.

All this should be tweaked for consistent look-and-feel, using that 
snazzy Trion logo and colour scheme (although other appearance details 
are up for discussion).


Okay, next?

--
Stephen M. Webb
ste...@br...

Re: [Trion-kernel-dev] Is the project still active?

[Sergey K. <tr...@de...>]

Stephen M. Webb wrote:
> Sergey Kuznetsov wrote:
>   
>> If you will share the idea what you want to have on the web-site I can
>> develop it on RubyOnRails.
>>     
>
> I really have no idea what I want on the website other than have it not 
> be so dead.  I tried setting up forums, I tried setting up a wiki.  It 
> would be nice to have both those functions available from a front page 
> that display the latest news, provides links to the SourceForge project 
> and download pages, has a unified user/login database, and has 
> consistent theming.
>
> Wouter (dr1982) was originally doing all the website stuff, and Mikey 
> (shyfx) was volunteering stuff, but they seem to have ridden into the 
> sunset.  If anyone else has ideas for the website, let's discuss them 
> and implement them.
>
>   
What if we will make some brain storm here ( I love brainstorming ) what
do we need on the web-site,
and later make the voting on the topics and will assign priorities on
each feature.

When we will agree what features nd information we need there, it will
be way easier to implement it.
Later we will need some kind of bug tracker and so on, so on, so on.

>> PPS: I will probably have some time soon, and I want to play with
>> TrionOS one more time. I like the idea and it would be nice to implement
>> some ideas I shared here two years ago (universal byte-code and so on) =)
>>     
>
> Great.  I still think in the coming era of multicore hardware a new OS 
> will rise up.  It may as well be Trion

That's the idea. I still think that it nice to revive the Sun's idea
"computer is a net, and net is a computer". :)

PS: I feel that in the future we will have big computer clusters who
will do the main work, and we will have lots of embedded
thin clients with plenty of bandwidth and cheap not powerful CPUs (
probably as a part of powerful GPU)  :) so all calculations
will be offloaded to that CPU clusters, and pre-cooked data will flow as
compined video-sound stream to the thin clients.



All the Best!
Sergey.

Re: [Trion-kernel-dev] Is the project still active?

[Stephen M. W. <ste...@br...>]

Sergey Kuznetsov wrote:
> 
> If you will share the idea what you want to have on the web-site I can
> develop it on RubyOnRails.

I really have no idea what I want on the website other than have it not 
be so dead.  I tried setting up forums, I tried setting up a wiki.  It 
would be nice to have both those functions available from a front page 
that display the latest news, provides links to the SourceForge project 
and download pages, has a unified user/login database, and has 
consistent theming.

Wouter (dr1982) was originally doing all the website stuff, and Mikey 
(shyfx) was volunteering stuff, but they seem to have ridden into the 
sunset.  If anyone else has ideas for the website, let's discuss them 
and implement them.

> PPS: I will probably have some time soon, and I want to play with
> TrionOS one more time. I like the idea and it would be nice to implement
> some ideas I shared here two years ago (universal byte-code and so on) =)

Great.  I still think in the coming era of multicore hardware a new OS 
will rise up.  It may as well be Trion.

--
Stephen M. Webb
ste...@br...

Re: [Trion-kernel-dev] Is the project still active?

[Sergey K. <tr...@de...>]

Stephen M. Webb wrote:
> chr...@ew... wrote:
>   
>> I'm still new to OS-Development but i've bought myself a book, coded a little
>> myself and am willing to help out if i can. That is of course, if trion is still
>> an active project. I am asking, because it doesnt seem so (the website/forums
>> seem quite empty...).
>>     
>
>
> Since you know PHP, you could also work on the website -- I was trying 
> to set stuff up only because everyone else seems to have disappeared, 
> but I'm not a web developer so I could really use some help.  For a 
> start, I need someone who knows PHP to write a module that will write 
>   
Stephen,

If you will share the idea what you want to have on the web-site I can
develop it on RubyOnRails.

PS and disclaimer: I am programmer, not web-designer so I need someone
who can make a design and I will implement functionality. :)

PPS: I will probably have some time soon, and I want to play with
TrionOS one more time. I like the idea and it would be nice to implement
some ideas I shared here two years ago (universal byte-code and so on) =)

All the Best!
Sergey.

Re: [Trion-kernel-dev] Is the project still active?

[Stephen M. W. <ste...@br...>]

chr...@ew... wrote:
> I'm still new to OS-Development but i've bought myself a book, coded a little
> myself and am willing to help out if i can. That is of course, if trion is still
> an active project. I am asking, because it doesnt seem so (the website/forums
> seem quite empty...).

Heh, yeah, the project is sort of dozing off and on.  Most of the 
current work on v0.2 was done by Daniel Raffler in a brief flurry of 
work a few months ago.

We're always interested in more people willing to do work.  We'd be 
happy to have you contribute as much as you want.  The best place to 
start is to build the kernel from source, create yourself a floppy or CD 
and boot your own computer, just to get the hang of it.  You can also 
boot the kernel using bochs or, I hear, vmware.  Use the v0.2 branch in CVS.

I think the next major task in the kernel is to work the scheduler and 
dispatcher.

Since you know PHP, you could also work on the website -- I was trying 
to set stuff up only because everyone else seems to have disappeared, 
but I'm not a web developer so I could really use some help.  For a 
start, I need someone who knows PHP to write a module that will write 
mail message out to a file so they can be sent by a cron job (since the 
sourceforge web servers cannot send mail, but the sourceforge shell 
servers can).  I'm also looking for someone who can integrate the wiki, 
forums, and static web pages better.

Email me your sourceforge ID and I can add you as a project developer.

--
Stephen M. Webb
ste...@br...

[Trion-kernel-dev] Is the project still active?

[<chr...@ew...>]

Hi.
I am Christopher Bertels, 19 years old, from Germany. I came across your project
while looking for a c++-based Kernel project.
I'm still new to OS-Development but i've bought myself a book, coded a little
myself and am willing to help out if i can. That is of course, if trion is still
an active project. I am asking, because it doesnt seem so (the website/forums
seem quite empty...).
I have experience in:

- PHP & MySQL (several years, i started programming with php back in 2001 i think)
- C++ (about 1-2 years effectively. started coding with it before but didnt
really do something serious in that time. i have worked on some network related
stuff like a open source server emulator for a german massive multiplayer online
game)
- C# (started coding some gui-related programms in the beginning of this year)
- I also am quite experienced in Photoshop, i've done several webdesigns and
other graphical stuff for printing etc...

The reason for looking for a c++-based kernel project was that i have more
experience in object oriented programming than procedural programming like with
c and that most OS'es dont use c++ as their main language for a kernel.
on the other side i took a look at your code and found it very clean and easy to
read, which also made me even more interestend in your project.
lastly, i think it's always more fun and better for learning when working in a team.
i also liked the design document for the kernel.

so my question is: is trion still being developed and if yes, could i help out
in programming? i will continue reading my book on os design and i'd like to
help out wherever i can, even if it's the more easy stuff. :)

I'm waiting for an answer!

Greetings,
Christopher. (My nickname is: bakkdoor).

PS: I also have ICQ, if needed: 76556283, and i regularly hang around on
irc.freenode.net #osdev (among other channels). oh and i looked into the #trion
channel, but it seemed like i was the only one there... 

--
Powered by EWE TEL

Re: [Trion-kernel-dev] Due to popular demand (?), Trion now has a wiki

[Jeff W. <jw...@ne...>]

> Before disk access really makes sense, the kernel must have reached a
> certain level of maturity. Once we've reached that point, I'll be totally
> unbiased which filesystem we're going to support first. The only thing
> that does matter, is that we start with a generic filesystem that is also
> supported by Linux/Windows (fat12 | ext2 | ISO). By implementing an
> incompatible standard as the very first filesystem in our kernel (Reiser |
> JeffFS | SFS), we would lose the possibility of data-exchange with other
> operating-systems. Something as simple as copying config files to our
> trion disk would be a mayor pain, as it'd require us to first write a
> Windows/Linux driver just to access the partition. Apart from that I also
> think that it will be much easier to debug/profile a custom file-system if
> we already have a "safe" ext12 partition that can be used to store
> debugging or performance data.

I agree completely.  I think it'll be much easier to develop a known, 
generally supported FS first.

> I386TaskManager.cpp is part of old source branch that probably hasn't been
> updated in years. All the recent work was moved to another module ("trion
> v0.2"). Also note that Sourceforge changed some details of its CVS system
> a couple of month ago. Logging-in using SSH now requires you to use
> ":ssh:[user-name]@trion.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/trion" as your path.

Aye!  I totally forgot about the new module!  I've now synched it up.  And 
yes, I'd already updated to the new sourceforge settings.

> Unlike the old source branch the new release doesn't (yet?) use
> autconf/automake or even a handwritten config-file. There's thus also no
> need to configure anything, as the makefile will automatically use an
> appropriate toolchain. To check if the toolchain is installed properly,
> you may just type "i686-elf-gcc" - if the command isn't recognized, you'll
> have to download and install the toolchain package from the project site
> (sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=90198&package_id=109649).
> Note that there's no need to update the toolchain as the binaries are
> actually still the same as in the old release. As they still do their job,
> a new build just doesn't seem to be a top-priority for the moment.

It would be nice if we could use a localized toolchain... for example, if I 
have my sources in ~/osdev/trion v0.2/... I'd like to have my toolchain in 
~/osdev/trion v0.2/toolchain.

My reasoning being that this is a cross-compiler specifically for trion, and 
I'd therefore like to keep in contained within the trion tree.  I don't see a 
use for installing it overtop of my existing filesystem (aka /).

Stephen, does this sound doable?  Obviously I can add in the directories into 
the path, but does GCC make any assumptions about where to find files?

Cheers,
Jeff

Re: [Trion-kernel-dev] Due to popular demand (?), Trion now has a wiki

[Daniel R. <cos...@gm...>]

>> Stephen wrote:
> As for a FAT12 filesystem, it's a little less important.  A bunch of m=
y  =

> best test systems, incluing my home system, don't even have floppy  =

> drives.
> A built-in RAM drive to emulate a FAT12 ot FAT16 system is required.  =
 =

> That's, for example, how Linux boots off a "live CD" or a PXE network =
 =

> boot.
> It should be easy enough to implement one as a kernel service.

How to get the kernel off the disk is actually GRUB's problem. It doesn'=
t  =

matter from what medium it boots or which method it uses as long as I ca=
n  =

rely on a "minimum system" being in memory once the nucleus gets in  =

control. Such a minimum system consists of all the managers and drivers =
 =

that are necessary to load subsequent files from the disk:

* Nucleus (only ring0 module)
* TaskManager
* MemoryManager
* DeviceManager

* Driver for the boot device (floppy | ata/atapi | usb-stick)
* StorageManager that supports the boot-drive's file-system (fat12 | ext=
2  =

| ISO)

* Login task (Continues start-up, loads CLI/GUI, initialized security, e=
tc)

Before disk access really makes sense, the kernel must have reached a  =

certain level of maturity. Once we've reached that point, I'll be totall=
y  =

unbiased which filesystem we're going to support first. The only thing  =

that does matter, is that we start with a generic filesystem that is als=
o  =

supported by Linux/Windows (fat12 | ext2 | ISO). By implementing an  =

incompatible standard as the very first filesystem in our kernel (Reiser=
 |  =

JeffFS | SFS), we would lose the possibility of data-exchange with other=
  =

operating-systems. Something as simple as copying config files to our  =

trion disk would be a mayor pain, as it'd require us to first write a  =

Windows/Linux driver just to access the partition. Apart from that I als=
o  =

think that it will be much easier to debug/profile a custom file-system =
if  =

we already have a "safe" ext12 partition that can be used to store  =

debugging or performance data.

>> Jeff wrote:
> The file it fails on (I386TaskManager.cpp) is the same in both builds,=
  =

> so I suspect the working build is using the toolchain contained inside=

> my 'toolchain' subdirectory.  I don't recall how I configured this  =

> toolchain, however. I'm hoping someone can give me a quick refresher
> on this?

I386TaskManager.cpp is part of old source branch that probably hasn't be=
en  =

updated in years. All the recent work was moved to another module ("trio=
n  =

v0.2"). Also note that Sourceforge changed some details of its CVS syste=
m  =

a couple of month ago. Logging-in using SSH now requires you to use  =

":ssh:[user-name]@trion.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/trion" as your path=
.

Unlike the old source branch the new release doesn't (yet?) use  =

autconf/automake or even a handwritten config-file. There's thus also no=
  =

need to configure anything, as the makefile will automatically use an  =

appropriate toolchain. To check if the toolchain is installed properly, =
 =

you may just type "i686-elf-gcc" - if the command isn't recognized, you'=
ll  =

have to download and install the toolchain package from the project site=
  =

(sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=3D90198&package_id=3D109=
649).  =

Note that there's no need to update the toolchain as the binaries are  =

actually still the same as in the old release. As they still do their jo=
b,  =

a new build just doesn't seem to be a top-priority for the moment.

Regards,
Daniel

Re: [Trion-kernel-dev] Due to popular demand (?), Trion now has a wiki

[Jeff W. <jw...@ne...>]

On Sunday 03 September 2006 07:42, Valerie Hogan wrote:
> From: "Daniel Raffler" <cos...@gm...>
>
> > Alright, I got the hint: You set-up this wiki and now you expect me to
> > fill it with some documentation about my obscure code. Neat trick ;)
> > Just make the trion logo transparent and I'll be fine with the design.
>
> Yes, I was hoping at least the regulars would crawl out of the woodwork.
>
> I'll definitely fix the logo and try to tweak the whole look-and-feel of
> the wiki, but like I said I don't really have much skill in being a web
> developer-- I'm still hoping one of the old guys comes alive or some fresh
> face appears with the new crop this fall.

I think this'll make documentation a little easier to keep current, at 
least... I know I've made the excuse of not having enough time to document a 
feature, etc. -- but with a wiki, you can create, edit, view, revise and 
publish all in the same interface, in no time, so this really shouldn't be a 
issue.

So, anyway, I synced up my CVS tree, and was able to build trion without 
issue.  Then I synched a completely new/fresh tree, tried to build, and ran 
into build issues... strange.

The file it fails on (I386TaskManager.cpp) is the same in both builds, so I 
suspect the working build is using the toolchain contained inside my 
'toolchain' subdirectory.  I don't recall how I configured this toolchain, 
however.  I'm hoping someone can give me a quick refresher on this?

Thanks,
Jeff

PS to Stephen... who's Valerie?

Re: [Trion-kernel-dev] Due to popular demand (?), Trion now has a wiki

[Valerie H. <br...@in...>]

From: "Daniel Raffler" <cos...@gm...>
> Alright, I got the hint: You set-up this wiki and now you expect me to
> fill it with some documentation about my obscure code. Neat trick ;)
> Just make the trion logo transparent and I'll be fine with the design.

Yes, I was hoping at least the regulars would crawl out of the woodwork.

I'll definitely fix the logo and try to tweak the whole look-and-feel of the 
wiki, but like I said I don't really have much skill in being a web 
developer-- I'm still hoping one of the old guys comes alive or some fresh 
face appears with the new crop this fall.

As for a FAT12 filesystem, it's a little less important.  A bunch of my best 
test systems, incluing my home system, don't even have floppy drives.  A 
built-in RAM drive to emulate a FAT12 ot FAT16 system is required.  That's, 
for example, how Linux boots off a "live CD" or a PXE network boot.  It 
should be easy enough to implement one as a kernel service.

--smw 

Re: [Trion-kernel-dev] Due to popular demand (?), Trion now has a wiki

[Daniel R. <cos...@gm...>]

> Stephen wrote:
> Anyways, I've set up an out-of-the-box wiki at http://trion.sf.net/wiki
> for anyone who is (a) still alive but not in a permanent vegetative
> state and (b) out there looking to do something with Trion.

Alright, I got the hint: You set-up this wiki and now you expect me to  
fill it with some documentation about my obscure code. Neat trick ;)

> Stephen wrote:
> Ja ja, it needs work to look sliXXors, but I'm soliciting content at
> this point.

Just make the trion logo transparent and I'll be fine with the design.

> Jeff wrote:
> I know since I last contributed, the architecture has changed quite a  
> fair bit.  Hopefully someone can point me in the right direction to
> update myself on what has happened as of late, and I'll begin my
> re-education, and hopefully start contributing again.

It's probably best if you just start by reading the latest trion design  
paper. Although it's unfortunatelly still quite superficial and  
incomplete, I still hope that it at least includes the most important  
aspects of the nano-kernel design. I've really spent ages on developing  
this design and it certainly is way more elaborated than the document may  
imply. If you have any questions that are not answered by the draft, just  
ask and I'll do my best to explain it. In my opinion such a public  
discussion is much more efficient than any full blown paper could ever be..

> Jeff wrote:
> I've had a lot of time to think, lately, about OS design, and am  
> currently working on a meta-based file system for my own OS, which
> might also be useful for Trion.

Before adding a custom file-system, we should in my opinion at least have  
some fat12 support for backwards compatibility. Once that is done I  
however don't see any reason why we shouldn't try out new designs. The  
nanokernel approach should actually make it quite easy to add support for  
new file-systems.

> Jeff wrote:
> I'm also trying to flesh out an inheritance-based hierarchical (ie,  
> OO-like) driver system... some of this research might be useful to
> Trion (admitedly, I don't recall if Trion decided upon a driver system).

Most probably we would have to adapt your design quite a bit to make it  
compatible with the rest of the nanokernel design. It's really hard to say  
to what extend it could be used without knowing any details of your driver  
system.

> Stephen wrote:
> The architecture docs are available from
> <http://trion.sourceforge.net/downloads.php>, um, er, okay it used to
> work.  Dang SourceForge and their constant tinkering.

Hmm, that's actually the old draft. The latest version is called "trion  
design draft.pdf" and can be found in the same CVS directory  
(http://trion.cvs.sourceforge.net/trion/docs/).

regards,
cosmo86

Re: [Trion-kernel-dev] Due to popular demand (?), Trion now has a wiki

[Stephen M. W. <ste...@br...>]

Jeff Weeks wrote:
> It'd be nice if the architecture docs, and a how-to for contributing to Trion 
> was put up on the wiki... not only would this be beneficial for new 
> developers, but also slacking ones that haven't written code for the project 
> in a long time (bows head in shame).
> 
> I know since I last contributed, the architecture has changed quite a fair 
> bit.  Hopefully someone can point me in the right direction to update myself 
> on what has happened as of late, and I'll begin my re-education, and 
> hopefully start contributing again.

The architecture docs are available from 
<http://trion.sourceforge.net/downloads.php>, um, er, okay it used to 
work.  Dang SourceForge and their constant tinkering.  Confound this 
newfangled technology, why can't they just use paper tape like they did 
when I was a kid (I remember when memory was made of little magnetic 
cores, too)?  Ah, okay, I got it working again, remind me to synch the 
changes some time.

The docs are in CVS under the docs project, and the new trion v2 is in 
the "trion v0.2" project.

Maybe with the back-to-school season starting we'll see some more progress.

--smw

Re: [Trion-kernel-dev] Due to popular demand (?), Trion now has a wiki

[Jeff W. <jw...@ne...>]

It'd be nice if the architecture docs, and a how-to for contributing to Trion 
was put up on the wiki... not only would this be beneficial for new 
developers, but also slacking ones that haven't written code for the project 
in a long time (bows head in shame).

I know since I last contributed, the architecture has changed quite a fair 
bit.  Hopefully someone can point me in the right direction to update myself 
on what has happened as of late, and I'll begin my re-education, and 
hopefully start contributing again.

I've had a lot of time to think, lately, about OS design, and am currently 
working on a meta-based file system for my own OS, which might also be useful 
for Trion.

I'm also trying to flesh out an inheritance-based hierarchical (ie, OO-like) 
driver system... some of this research might be useful to Trion (admitedly, I 
don't recall if Trion decided upon a driver system).

Anyway, I'll be synching up my local CVS repo this weekend and trying to at 
least get a build running.

Cheers,
Jeff

On Friday 01 September 2006 12:16, Stephen M. Webb wrote:
> Okay, so maybe demand is the wrong word.  Someone once suggested it last
> year.
>
> Anyways, I've set up an out-of-the-box wiki at http://trion.sf.net/wiki
> for anyone who is (a) still alive but not in a permanent vegetative
> state and (b) out there looking to do something with Trion.  Ja ja, it
> needs work to look sliXXors, but I'm soliciting content at this point.
>
> There is no relation between users created in the wiki and users created
> in the forum.  I'm not a web developer (anyone? volunteers?).
>
> I'll be watching you so be polite.
>
> --smw
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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> _______________________________________________
> Trion-kernel-dev mailing list
> Tri...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/trion-kernel-dev

[Trion-kernel-dev] Due to popular demand (?), Trion now has a wiki

[Stephen M. W. <ste...@br...>]

Okay, so maybe demand is the wrong word.  Someone once suggested it last 
year.

Anyways, I've set up an out-of-the-box wiki at http://trion.sf.net/wiki 
for anyone who is (a) still alive but not in a permanent vegetative 
state and (b) out there looking to do something with Trion.  Ja ja, it 
needs work to look sliXXors, but I'm soliciting content at this point.

There is no relation between users created in the wiki and users created 
in the forum.  I'm not a web developer (anyone? volunteers?).

I'll be watching you so be polite.

--smw