[Mono-list] Linux.NET

[Dan Lewis]

Yeah that's a really exciting prospect, isn't it? We're already seeing
some manifestations of this kind of setup in JavaOS, and in Lucent's
Inferno/Limbo. But C# would be nicer :)

I would imagine (me speaking as someone with zero kernel development
experience) that writing your own Linux kernel might take a while ;)
How about building a minimal kernel from the excellent existing codebase,
and then concentrating your efforts on building your higher-level
services using C#.

If you really want a custom OS, grab a ready made microkernel (eg
Fiasco is a C++ rewrite of L4) and chuck in a few goodies from Utah's
OSKit. But that sounds like hard work to me...

Another poster recently posed this same idea using DOS as the base. We
should think about these things. In my opinion one of the best
features of Mono is its complete lack of dependencies - something
that makes it extremely attractive to the embedded people. I'm
absolutely positive that in a year's time embedded developers are
going to be looking very hard at this project.

We need to continue to be clear about the contract between Mono and
the host system. For instance, many embedded platforms don't provide
any virtual memory services - is this going to be a problem? Some of
them provide better threading services - can we exploit them? If we
get input from people trying to do these crazy things then we can
direct our development so that Mono is available to the biggest possible
userbase.

Dan.


 --- John Rebbeck <john@rebent.com> wrote:
> Would it be possible to create a (or use an existing) Linux kernel in C++ but
> only the minimum required to implement the Mono version of the CLR (and
> whatever else is needed to run .NET applications) and to set some properties
> to load a chosen program when it starts (the explorer program)? This way you
> could build an OS almost completely in C# which is much easier to program
> than C++. You would be able to download OS components from the web, download
> interfaces, etc. similar to the current versions of Linux and you could
> completely customise the OS. With this, if you wanted a PC to do set specific
> tasks you wouldn't have to install an OS, only the kernel, then you just
> build on that, and you can't do this with Windows because you have to install
> everything first.
> 
> Anyway, just thinking out loud. If anyone wants to try this I'd love to build
> some of the C# components for it, and anything else I can do to help. Also,
> please tell me about it because I would love to have an OS as functional as
> Windows but without the crap.
> 
> Cheers,
> John
>  

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