Smallest supported OS ?

[Philip Rhoades]

People,

I have only just signed up - I was led to Genode by a post on the
MaidSAFE forum and so I am quite interested in the prospects for Genode
and I want to get involved.

First question - from searching the archives I can't see any info on one
of things I am interested in - what is the smallest bootable OS that can
be set up with Genode? - could it be small enough to fit on a floppy
disk?

Thanks,

Phil.

[Norman Feske]

Hi Philip,

thanks for your interest in Genode and welcome to the list!

It may be a coincidence but I recently added a note about the SAFE
network to our "Challenges" page:

https://genode.org/about/challenges

Really cool to see that the interest may be even mutual!

Post by Philip Rhoades
First question - from searching the archives I can't see any info on one
of things I am interested in - what is the smallest bootable OS that can
be set up with Genode? - could it be small enough to fit on a floppy
disk?

It ultimately depends on the system scenario.

E.g., for a very simple scenario (log.run) on NOVA, the build system
generates an ISO image of 3 MiB, which contains the NOVA hypervisor,
Genode's core and init components, the dynamic linker, and a simple
"hello-world" component. The content on the ISO is not packed though. In
principle, GRUB supports gzip'ed boot modules. If this feature was used,
the image would shrink to about 800 KiB. (I just gzipped the ISO to get
a rough estimate)

For an interactive scenario, you may take os/run/demo.run as reference.
It contains several drivers (VESA, PS/2, timer), the nitpicker GUI
server, and a few interactive example applications. The ISO is 8 MiB
(gzip'ed to 3 MiB) whereas a third of the size can be attributed to a
single demo application (scout).

In short, you can squeeze a Genode-based system on a floppy. But such a
system would be rather boring. ;-)

Cheers
Norman

[Philip Rhoades]

Norman,

Post by Norman Feske
Hi Philip,
thanks for your interest in Genode and welcome to the list!

Thanks for the welcome! I think it will be a very interesting
investigation for me - I have been thinking about micro-kernels for a
while . .

Post by Norman Feske
It may be a coincidence but I recently added a note about the SAFE
https://genode.org/about/challenges
Really cool to see that the interest may be even mutual!

SAFE and Genode could be a beautiful and very timely marriage . .

Post by Norman Feske

Post by Philip Rhoades
First question - from searching the archives I can't see any info on one
of things I am interested in - what is the smallest bootable OS that can
be set up with Genode? - could it be small enough to fit on a floppy
disk?

It ultimately depends on the system scenario.
E.g., for a very simple scenario (log.run) on NOVA, the build system
generates an ISO image of 3 MiB, which contains the NOVA hypervisor,
Genode's core and init components, the dynamic linker, and a simple
"hello-world" component. The content on the ISO is not packed though. In
principle, GRUB supports gzip'ed boot modules. If this feature was used,
the image would shrink to about 800 KiB. (I just gzipped the ISO to get
a rough estimate)

Pretty impressive!

Post by Norman Feske
For an interactive scenario, you may take os/run/demo.run as reference.
It contains several drivers (VESA, PS/2, timer), the nitpicker GUI
server, and a few interactive example applications. The ISO is 8 MiB
(gzip'ed to 3 MiB) whereas a third of the size can be attributed to a
single demo application (scout).
In short, you can squeeze a Genode-based system on a floppy. But such a
system would be rather boring. ;-)

I know this exercise would not be of prime interest for the Genode
development but I am thinking of emergency boot disk(s) for old hardware
(no CD or USB) and it might be a convenient investigation for me to
start exploring Genode - would it be possible to daisy-chain a number of
floppies to boot?

Regards,

Phil.

Post by Norman Feske
Cheers
Norman
--
Dr.-Ing. Norman Feske
Genode Labs
http://www.genode-labs.com · http://genode.org
Genode Labs GmbH · Amtsgericht Dresden · HRB 28424 · Sitz Dresden
Geschäftsführer: Dr.-Ing. Norman Feske, Christian Helmuth
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