Hi, John Gilmore <g...@toad.com> skribis:
> Does the GNU Mes bootstrap-reducing team have a plan to replace Grub and > the Linux kernel and init (and perhaps a BIOS?) with something tiny that > runs on bare metal and implements a file system, the mount command, and > processes? Many realtime OS's are much smaller than Linux or BSD and > yet have those capabilities. eCos might be a great start, and is free, > highly portable, and includes a POSIX layer (and TCP/IP for debugging), > though it currently lacks fork/exec/wait. The original V7 UNIX kernel > would work, if process sizes and filename sizes are patched, and a few > device drivers written for modern disk and CDROM drives. Such a > bootstrap kernel would enable the Scheme bootstrap programs to run well > enough to build gcc, then use gcc to build the Linux kernel, then boot > it, and continue building. >From the Guix perspective, during the last Reproducible Builds Summit, we came up with code that generates a Linux initrd that, when booted, starts building software up to a given package; this is described under “Extreme Bootstrapping” at: https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2019/reproducible-builds-summit-5th-edition/ This is mostly a proof of concept to see how we can reduce the trusted computing base. Another approach some of us fancy is similar to what you describe: bootstrapping a microkernel-based OS (presumably the Hurd). Nothing concrete to show yet… Thanks, Ludo’.
