What is Digg?49 Comments
- atomicpoet, on 10/12/2007, -1/+41I don't know what is more impressive: that it fits within 50kb or that it manages to display photos and mpegs. Consequently, does anyone how big the original GEOS for the Commodore 64 was?
- swizz, on 10/12/2007, -2/+33for desktops yes, for embedded systems no.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+26Displaying a photo larger in size than the operating system will make the universe implode.
- rompom7, on 10/12/2007, -5/+23Very impressive. But I want to see how it looks, I don't imagine it to be fancy at all, I just want to see how much they packed into that 50KB.
EDIT: I'm retarded, I didn't scroll down to see the screenshots before commenting. - GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -7/+23Don't think the GUI should be included in the kernel. That sounds far too XPish for me. By all means use the framebuffer in place of X11 but please make your GUI in userland and call the framebuffer from there.
- aaron.dunlap, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16Is this cool? Yes. Should this be included in the Linux Kernel? By no means.... The point of the linux kernel is to provide "kernel" functionality... not a windowing system. If an embedded system wants to use this windowing system, then let them place it into the kernel themselves. I think the argument between the kernel framebuffer developers and this guy illustrates how well the coders understand their positions in kernel development.
- geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16"Isn't it like 2007? dont we have dual core processors and 4gb of memory?"
Your [Cellphone|MP3 Player|TiVo|Watch|Camcorder|etc] has a dual core processor and 4GB of RAM? This software works with the Linux kernel, meaning it'll run on anything that runs Linux, which includes a huge portion of processors not of the x86 family. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14I'm not being sarcastic, but GEOS was obviously less than 64KB if it was running on the Commodore "64"
From the wikipedia entry:
"Written by a group of programmers who cut their teeth on limited-resource video game machines such as the Atari 2600, GEOS was revered for what it could accomplish on machines with 64–128KB of RAM memory and 1–2 MHz of 8-bit processing power."
The 128KB of RAM referred to (at a minimum) the Commodore 128.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEOS_(8-bit_operating_system)
There are some cool screenshots here:
http://toastytech.com/guis/c64g.html - nofxjunkee, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15No kidding... I can't believe what I'm reading on this guy's page. He has a huge chip on his shoulder!
"August 2006: Inclusion of FBUI windowing system into the Linux kernel has been blocked by Linux framebuffer developers. This illustrates one major defect of how the Linux project is managed: those who control it are no more responsive or responsible to the public's needs or wants than are Microsoft's managers. Linux is not truly a hobbyist's operating system. Rather than pursue replacing fbdev, I will probably port FBUI to FreeDOS32, which is very minimalist, or Minix 3."
Um, so you were able to download and hack on the source, compile your own LiveCD with a calc app and ***** and that is not a hobbyists OS? Um, do that with OS X or Windows. What a dumb-ass. This doesn't belong in the kernel proper and I don't want it in the kernel.org releases.
The fact that he can continue to develop and release and patch Linux with this FBGUI stuff makes it a hobbyists OS... he just doesn't get that hobbyist OS doesn't mean that the lead devs include every crappy patch that someone submits.
I'm not saying FBGUI is crappy, just that he doesn't get it. His attitude in the news there completely turned me off of him, and hence his project. It does sound great for mobile devices though.
... sorry but your whining cost you a digg, whoever you are. - tuzziel, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10To draw simple buttons and windows you can use VESA interface without X11, unders 50kB, easy. Hell, I remember 8bit 3D game called Academy by Pete Cook back in 80ties that has customizable Windows like gui under 32kB +da 3d game!! and the interface looked kinda cool, this GUI just makes me vomit.
- prateeksriv, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Maybe it is a bad idea to include it directly into Linux kernel.
But, it might be ok for the hackers to use it as a dynamically loaded module. (indmod)
I personally prefer to run Linux as a standalone desktop, I _really _ don't need the heavy X11 system,
this kind of simple and fast system is all that I need. - MilesTeg, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Inclusion of FBUI windowing system into the Linux kernel has been blocked:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/fbui/message/59
does anyone has a working link where the arguments are raised on why this piece of code wasn't included?
just curious - ElbridgeGerry, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3This is cruft. Let distros add this themselves, we don't need crap in the kernel.
- geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The DS has two ARMs; an ARM9 as it's "main" and an ARM7 as a "secondary". The iPod's previous chip from PortalPlayer used to have dual ARM7s (but you've gotta realize that in computing power, this is less than or equal to an early 90's Pentium processor). That doesn't defeat the point, however, that this is a complete GUI system that could run on the iPod (or even a slower ARM7) decently.
- wingnut21, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4"what was it like in the eightyties?"
A lot like the eighties, with the notable exception of poor grammar. - marcan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Is a small framebuffer GUI a good idea? Sure. Does it have to be in the kernel? mMst definitely not. If they need additional kernel-side features, they should make a few small patches to add them, and run the bulk of the code in userland. Putting a window manager in kernelspace is foolish.
The arguments about being able to access more graphics RAM are B.S. for several reasons:
- Any machine with that much VRAM probably also has a 64-bit CPU, which has a humongous address space that can accomodate it easily.
- Anyone who spent the money to buy a graphics card with 1GB VRAM probably won't be running this window manager
- If you really need to use it in a 32-bit machine, just submit a SMALL kernel patch to provide that functionality, instead of putting the ENTIRE thing in the kernel
Drivers in userspace are a GOOD thing - graphics drivers are very complex beasts and if they crash you don't want them to bring down the entire kernel. Modern graphics drivers have a kernel-side module that manages access to the card and protects it from illegal access, and the X/GL drivers do the work of formatting the data and sending it to the card. Hell, nowadays, if your GL driver crashes, many times only that application that was using it crashes. Here are other examples of userspace drivers that work well: libusb, FUSE, low-level userspace network apps (nmap), etc... Besides, FBUI is not trying to put the graphics driver in the kernel (which might or might not be a good idea), but the ENTIRE WINDOWING MANAGER. What's next, kfirefox? - has2k1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Isn't it impressive that it can take screen-shots too? Wow
- Ratteler, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2GEOS actually used a form of Virtual Memory to access more than 64K. I belive those old 5.25 Floppies held aproxamately 164K per side. the 1571 could access a 360K double sided disk.
The Final Cartidge sucked for 1 reason. No one ever created applications for it. Also with 20/20 hindsite, it would have been a real painin the ass to upgrade the ROM. - Aninhumer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"A lot like the eighties, with the notable exception of poor grammar."
So they *didn't* have poor grammar? - cyrus007, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Question for the developer, can this be integrated into LinuxBIOS instead of it trying out Linux/FreeDOS etc which the devloper seems to be trying ? Right now unofficial vesions of LinuxBIOS runs with TinyX and needs 2MB space from what I read on slashdot.
- wounded625, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5what was it like in the eightyties?
- Chozabu, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4whats the problem with having it in the mainline kernel? you dont have to put it in your kernel...
- Sicarul, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@supermajic:
Not in Argentina... - takeda, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1In the article author mentioned that by including it into the kernel he made the code much smaller, that's good enough reason.
Embeded systems supposed to be minimalistic. - geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1TinyX is actually KDrive, which is an incredibly lightweight X server. You /could/ replace it with this GUI, but the whole point of the X server is to run/support software that's already written. Using this GUI, you'll have to rewrite a bunch of support software to use it.
Since all this is doing is using the kernel framebuffer and a very simple input system, it's possible to use it anywhere after you've booted the kernel. You also have to understand that the whole image is 2MB, KDrive only makes up a tiny portion of that (LinuxBIOS, Kernel, KDrive, Matchbox, Busybox, etc). - nofxjunkee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@swizz:
I haven't really done embedded development. Why is it better to put things into the kernel on embedded devices? It seems like modern processors like the Xscale can handle the context switches or whatever... I guess it must be something else. I am genuinely curious though. - mentor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Is it the 70s already?
- Ratteler, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm not sure about the whole "in Kernal" situation.
On one hand, something like this in a Linux BIOS would be awesome. I look at it like motherboard integrated graphics. They're not the best, but they are there which means the system will always work, even if the latest games and 3D widgets wont.
It would be nice if the Linux Kernal had a least common denominator GUI so that there was always a way to get around in it.
On the otherhand, who is really going to use this least common denominator, and why? With modern "Vista" motherboards coming with a dedicated USB port for VISTA's flash ram acceleration gimick, is there any real reason to put this in the Kernal? That flash could be preloaded with only the graphics hardware drivers available, and a GUI that can access them all.
As much as I like the idea of Power on and go... this is probably not the best way to do it. - crossers, on 02/25/2008, -0/+0This is indeed awesome. Much more to it on http://www.emergencysoft.com and http://www.mitip2007.org
- GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4Perhaps this is the next step in defeating the 'Linux is just a kernel' argument. When we have a Shell, GUI, the KVM, a JVM etc within the kernel it will literally be the entire operating system :).
- brainxs, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0Very useful. I'm surprised.
- crossers, on 07/03/2008, -0/+0great! realy great, cause I dislike X systems.
http://www.ocflex.com/
http://www.trgovinca.org
http://www.chasr.org/ - oldnikon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Good. But the host is down....
- nofxjunkee, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1With modern mobile devices that have hundreds of MB of main memory and storage chips in the GB I really don't see saving a few kB as a good enough reason to make poor design decisions. I'm interested in what makes stuffing this into the kernel a good design decision on an embedded device.
- wedesoft, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Currently a Linux server does not require a graphic card. You can even remotely run GUI-applications on it. Also there is a clear distinction between processes (or threads) and window-handles. A thing Windows developers (and users) can only dream of. If someone wants to introduce fundamental changes here, she/he needs to take these kind of configurations into account.
Also integrating graphics and window management into the kernel could impact system stability, which is a major advantage of GNU/Linux at the moment. - Cbaar, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Like the first comment says: It might be useful for some embedded systems;
but imho it shouldn`t become a part of the vanilla kernel. - yoni, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Note that I am not criticizing linux, it cannot share the same approach as its orientation is not desktop only (in contrast to haiku).
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2> Your [Cellphone|MP3 Player|TiVo|Watch|Camcorder|etc] has a dual core processor and 4GB of RAM?
I think the Nintendo DS has dual CPUs. - yoni, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0Cool, the X system is one of the things I dislike in linux.
The approach of integrating the GUI system in the kernel* has been seen in other operating systems such as BeOS and its continuator Haiku.
*There is some separation between crucial kernel modules and other subsystems such as GUI, look up "hybrid kernel" for more information. - Ransomowris, on 10/12/2007, -7/+3Wow, is it that hard to type out "eighties"?
- Masterbaiter, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1"Start"? oh well i'll have to change that..
- sshhaammss, on 10/12/2007, -5/+0im in ur kernel, wastin ur cycles
- NX910a, on 10/12/2007, -9/+4But will it run Beryl?
- FyberOptic, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1This is what X11/Xorg ought to be, instead of the huge bloated slow pieces of ***** they are.
- rabidsnail, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2It's bad enough having device drivers in the kernel. We don't need to be adding anything else.
- scabbers, on 10/12/2007, -15/+9@ Morganm if you think an A1200 using a 256 colour workbench has "instant response", you need to lay off the LSD.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -14/+8I think GEOS was on floppies wasn't it? Whatever size those were, although I prefered Final Cartridge 3.
The project is great, but he's right, Linux is not the place for it. Can't wait for it to find a home though, I'd kill for a computer with truly instant response again someday (Amiga being last time for me). - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -15/+2It is a lame idea to put everything into the kernel.
- supermajic, on 10/12/2007, -21/+3Isn't it like 2007? dont we have dual core processors and 4gb of memory?
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