Re: gcc-8086

[Miguel Bolanos <mike@linuxlabs.com>]

Hey! :)

On Thu, 2004-05-13 at 10:44, Eduardo Pereira Habkost wrote:

[...]

> > I haven't get to test it yet... but yeah i'd be interest to see how
> > useful it can be for us. ATM we use bcc.
> 
> When I have time (I hope that it will be soon), I'll do some tests
> using ELKS, and report them. First, I should try to boot ELKS on my only
> 8086 machine (an uncommon one, I guess: a hp 200lx palmtop).
> 

Good we will be looking forward to see those reports.. i will try to
make sometime myself as well and see if i can get some results testing.

Quite an uncommon box btw, but hey its always nice to play with uncommon
hardware :)

[...]

> > Porting the existing kernel code... u mean making a fork for elks?
> 
> I don't know if I would call it a "fork".
> 
> I mean trying to make the 2.6 code work on 16-bit. Sure a separated tree
> will be needed for this work, as most of the Linux kernel projects. Some
> of the work could be used for ELKS, and lots of experience on ELKS,
> and even code, would help. If it works, ELKS and Linux would become more
> and more similar, but there is a long way ahead before this dream come
> true.

Yes.. as i said before i have been doing little bits of this.. but
believe me its NOT such an easy task.. but hey if others are interest i
could share what i've done so far so maybe we can take from there.

> 
> (Okay, I am going back to the Real World. I was just wondering if that
> could be possible :)
> 

Possible yes.. easy? no :)

[...]

> I've started to do the same thing: playing with the 2.6 code, seeing
> how hard would be doing that port. Then I decided look at ELKS first,
> then check if it will be worth doing, and if someone haven't thought of
> it yet. So here I am.
> 

Well i consider it worth it for both the benefit to the community, and
for the learning experience :)

As i said if others are interested some of of us could start doing a bit
of this..

> All these gcc and elks work are being a fun personal project to me, too.
> 

Well i believe most if not all Open Source developers start cool
projects just for fun. :)
Thats part of the charm of the charm of the Open Source Community :)

[...]

> > 
> > The first question that comes to my mind is... do u mean to put all the
> > linux kernel on a 10mb hard disk (if u are lucky to find one this big
> > for an 8086), even though u know that 99.5% of the code is useless for
> > ur box?
> 
> No, I mean to build only the needed parts, as on the 2.6 code, even
> more parts of the kernel are becoming optional at build time,
> and there are more that could be done. In a perfect world, we wouldn't
> need a separated project for linux-8086, just disable the features you
> on't need.
> 
> But I didn't tested how small the kernel could be made, even on i386,
> removing all unneeded parts. If it is still too big, a lot of the work
> would be making unnecessary parts optional. This would help not only
> 8086 people, but other people that works on embedded systems. If it is
> still TOO big, then the work will be even more painful.  8)
> 

Your idea is nice... but sounds quite painfull... but then again if some
how this could be flexible enough to maybe have an arch oriented feature
selection.. but i don't know.. we would have to think about to in the
end get to the conclusion that is easier to write a subset with the
official kernel code style.


> BTW, I currently have a 5MB flash disk on my "8086 machine", and should
> receive a 256MB ata flash disk for it, soon.
> 

nice.

> Anyway, my "dream" would be building, from the same Linux kernel tree,
> with different options, a kernel as small as ELKS, and the kernel for
> my PC or to a server. It seems to be a long way.  :)
> 

Well start doing something to make that dream come true is a good start
:)

> > 
> > best wishes
> > 
> > Mike
> 
> Just sharing my thoughts. I think that I should show something more
> concrete, now, and not only wondering "how nice would it be if we have
> foobar ported to 8086".

Not really... brain storms are always great to then write down concrete
stuff.
hopefully others will join this conversation.. Alan? Harry? Paul? :)

best regards

Mike