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AtheOS Interview
JigSaw writes: "BeNews has a very interesting interview with Kurt Skauen, the AtheOS creator and almost its sole developer. In the interview, Kurt is discussing the design of his OS which features a (nearly) micro-kernel, memory protection, 'true' multitasking, real C++ OOP design from the ground-up and all the rest of these buzzwords. AtheOS uses its own GUI, it does not rely on X or KDE libs, so porting Konqueror to his OS was a bit of a challenge."
I think it was under DOS, as before the 0.3.0 release of AtheOS, it could even boot off a DOS FAT32 partition! Then, Kurt removed that "feature" and made AtheOS bootable to its own partition with its own kick-ass 64-bit journaled and attributed file system. :)
Try QT/Embedded: It's a fully working GUI engine, backed by TrollTech, on Linux, that has the full QT widget set. And it's GPL'ed. And it does anti-aliasing, etc., etc., etc. It's even got konqueror.
pre-packaged 0.3.2 for VMWare - includes optional components - 120Mb ish IIRC
you can update to 0.3.4 once installed.
http://www.ethernalquest.org/VmAtheOS.zip
I haven't tried this, don't have the bandwidth.
Every time there's a discussion about BeOS the /. OSS/Linux zealots cry BeOS is good but that they'll never support closed source commercial software (as they run off to happily play Quake(TM)(C)(R) on their Linux box).
AtheOS brings some of the best of the BeOS world while being open source and POSIX compliant. No more whining, go get to work.
I just hope they make the API as elegant as the BeOS API, which is a jewel.
Is this OS available for the Amiga?
Well, that depends. You see, Amiga is more than a piece of hardware. It's more than an OS. It's more than an internet appliance. It's more than a video editing workstation. Amiga is a metaphysical state of computing perfection -- an undefinable nirvana between hazy dreams, shattered promises, and perfection long since lost. Amiga is a way of being. It is enlightenment. It is a freedom gained from oneness with vapor than only many, many years of guru meditations can achieve.
So, no. AtheOS is not available for Amiga, but it strives to be, much like us all.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
He may be a crackerjack programmer but his English leaves something to be desired...
It's not like most of the American-born readers (and editors) of this site have a better grasp of the language. That doesn't make them less intelligent, just less articulate. Plus, I'm halfway sure the guy isn't a native English speaker anyway. Let's see how well you do in your second language, if you even have one that is.
I respect his C++ skills better anyway. I have to have a lot of respect for a man who will singlehandedly write his own preemptively multithreaded kernel, taggable journaling filesystem, GUI & event-driven programming layer, and system drivers, and who ported GLIBC and a web browser to his home-brew system. Sure, the grammar threw me for a bit of a loop initially, but just how high did your average native American Slashdot reader score on their verbal SATs/ACTs anyway?
This guy has a crazy mix of genius and dedication that could've changed the world if applied to things like military strategies or politics or if they had appeared on the scene at the right time and place. How different do you think things would've been had he started his OS 5 years ago? He'd be Linus right now and have his own cult following. (Of course, his OS might've gone in a completely different direction without his BeOS-loving friends to influence him.)
Of course, this is yet another pointless response to a blatant troll. Disregard as you see fit.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Get a grip, yourself.
He says that he's wanting to perhaps switch the core system to the LGPL so that he doesn't discourage people using other licenses. He's doing this to allow 3rd-party developers more freedom in designing their software. He never mentioned taking the whole OS to a closed source license for profit reasons. You're either trolling or grossly misinformed.
You know what? Even if he felt like doing that, then your choices are (1) shut up and (2) like it. It's his personal project that he's poured blood, sweat, and tears into. You're obviously not a user of AtheOS, so it's not like it effects you anyway. You claim that he's "no Linus" and that his "poject is no Linux," but let's see you write your own OS from scratch, especially one as advanced and fully featured as his. His OS is in many ways on par with Linux and BeOS for functionality, and he's been doing it all himself. Let's see you do better.
Futhermore, exactly where does he bash on other OSes or brag about how great his project is? Nowhere. You're just making up crap to troll, and it's not even a very good one at that. This man has done something that 99.9999% of the population simply isn't capable of and you dare to slam him for it because of a simple potential license change?
Whatever. You people are the reason that the Free Software movement feeds on its young. I can't believe you'd slander this man over such a petty thing.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Why is there not one workingd GUI/graphic engine on Unix that is not X11 (eventhough there are regulary some attemps at it that appear here and there), and why a guy alone manage to make one that fully work (from graphic driver to widgets and API) and an OS to go with it ? If it is feasible on a "made from scratch" it should be already done on Linux for a long time. I mean - X11 has it's strength, but nowhere near the responsiveness and lean of BeOS GUI (or some other OS I won't name because I can already feel the flames...)
Addressing space. As in 00000000 to 7FFFFFFF on a 32 bit machine is reserved for the kernal.
Not the same as memory space.
Spyky
I have zero tolerance for zero-tolerance policies.
Constitutionally Correct
Well, AtheOS:
- Has a POSIX.1 API
- Uses bash as it's shell
- Uses GNU CC & Glibc
It's as close to Unix as it really needs to be, for me to feel comfortable using it. If you're used to Linux, you feel close enough to home using AtheOS for basic tasksSyllable : It's an Operating System
Pretty amazing. Too bad he didn't have more help, but how many software developers can find the time to put another 10 hours a week into an on-the-side project.
Kurt is probably very thankful for "32-bit OS Design and Development With Pre-emptive Threading in C++ for Dummies".
Since by definition a microkernel doesn't run core OS services like filesystems and the network stack in kernel space, in what sense is AtheOS "nearly" microkernel-based?
I'm not even sure why people still care how microkernelish every new OS is...
Address space and memory are not the same thing. Many OSes reserve half the address space for the kernel, so that you can check whether a pointer points to user or kernel memory just by looking at the most significant bit.
Am I the only one around here who is a little leery anymore of clicking any links in the .cx domain?
eh, i guess that's what i get for browsing at -1...
It's not down. It is a bit loaded though :)
The server link is only 2Mb/s so it tend to be a bit hard to access when slashdotted.
--- Kurt Skauen
Yes. I have been developing AtheOS solely under AtheOS for about 3 years now.
>Is anyone working on a GUI RAD tool for AtheOS (something in the spirit of KDevelop or Glade)?
No.
>Are you trying to gather the momentum among application developers now or is it too early?
It's a bit early. I have never ever anounced AtheOS anywhere myself since many important "desktop features" and other things that I whould like to have firmly defined from the beginning are still missing.
>Do you have a Component Model yet? If not are you planning to add one soon? A CM would definitely help keep the look and feel consistent and help avoid code duplication. Two things that marred Linux's acceptance as a desktop OS.
Nothing like COM or CORBA but AtheOS have an object oriented design and it is component based in the sence that you can build abstract components that communicate over the flexible "builtin" event system.
--- Kurt Skauen
"because it isn't there"
I think AtheOS is actually a very valuable project for the Open Source world because not everyone is a Unix fan. A modern GUI but non-Unix operating system under GPL is a good thing for the OS scholar, as it gives a different perspective on how to do things.
/brian
It's open source, written by some of the best people in the business, (the source code is beautiful) and its whole raison d'etre is to investigate how things should be done, instead of how they are usually done.
you might find some of your fundamental assumptions challenged and your paradigms shifted, but isn't that the point?! it keeps fundamentals of UNIX while discarding all the crud that's built up since the 7th Edition...
When you sit back and think about it, it's quite an astonishing acomplishment for one person. The OS itself has some interesting design features, but just the factthat it got designed and created at all (by one person) is quite amazing
Great work Kurt.
--CTH
--
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
Over on the BeNews discussion board for the article, a lot of people are saying that AtheOS has (and presumably will continue to have) poor driver support.
They forget two things, however:
- AtheOS is GPL (though Kurt is considering moving it to LGPL).
- Linux has the best hardware support of any non-Redmond OS out there.
Combine these two, and it's almost a certainty that AtheOS will get drivers, simply because it's drivers can be based on Linux kernel drivers.It might be an interesting exercise to port most of the Linux kernel drivers to the AtheOS architecture.
AtheOS is what I've been wanting.
Simply put, it's an open source project that isn't just a clone of an existing product. Open Source works great when everybody has a pretty set model of how it should work. Linux was easy because they just had to make it work like the existing assortment of Unicies.
But AtheOS is good because they are investigating how things should be done, instead of how they are usually done. Granted, BeOS already did a lot of that thinking, but they still are going off in their own directions.
It'll be interesting to see how this works out. Is it possible for an open source project to create something new and truly innovative?
Gentoo Sucks
My questions to Kurt:
Can Atheos compile itself yet?
Is anyone working on a GUI RAD tool for AtheOS (something in the spirit of KDevelop or Glade)?
Are you trying to gather the momentum among application developers now or is it too early?
Do you have a Component Model yet? If not are you planning to add one soon? A CM would definitely help keep the look and feel consistent and help avoid code duplication. Two things that marred Linux's acceptance as a desktop OS.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
Looks like it uses some of our GPL'ed code. Should be GNU/AtheOS.
this is quite an achievement. If you remember, Linus Thorvalds made Linux based on Minix, which was an operating system built by A. Tannenbaum. In my OS class, back in 1988, we used AST's book, "Operating Systems", which came with the fully functional OS with source, on floppies. So if Linus is God, at least Kurt deserves to be part of the Pantheon.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.