Re: We have a whole new ton of goodies to investigate...

Alan Cox
2015-04-26T23:31:28Z

> I wonder, if Fuzix is sufficiently portable to run on 8086, could it
> happen to offer a possibly even more suitable foundation for a usable
> system, than the linux-derived code in ELKS?

I'm not sure where the changeover point would be. ELKS supports
asynchronous disk I/O properly, something FUZIX avoids. On an 8bit micro
its pretty much pure overhead. On a PC/XT it's less clear.

> > plenty of stuff in ELKS that was taken from 386 Linux and is perhaps
> > somewhat over-engineered for the job (buffer cache is perhaps one bit
> > still)
>
> I guess so. Sigh. The original V7's or even V6's quite basic design might
> possibly suit 8086 better (I did not look at the ELKS kernel but I saw
> V6/7 sources and also pieces of Venix/86 kernel which were apparently
> build from literally the same C code, this seemed to work well).

ELKS is not that bloated to be honest. It's got a few areas that would
probably save a chunk of memory if fixed but the basic architecture is
pretty sound including basic 286 mode support.

Some of the utilities are a bit brain-dead or buggy and might benefit
from being pulled from elsewhere instead, and there are things lacking
(like the real bourne shell should fit fine and is nowdays available)

Alan