On Fri, Nov 19, 1999 at 04:42:25PM +0100, Stefan Rieken wrote:
> Thanks for the links about "native" Squeak products running together
> with Linux. I have one question about that: the Linux kernel provides
> multitasking. Does Squeak use this service, or does it do it's own
> multitasking? 
Squeak does not use threads or processes from Linux. The SqueakVM is
one single unix-process. 

> In the latter case, shouldn't it be of more profit if we
> used an extremely basic kernel in "native" squeak (like DOS; e.g.
> freeDOS) ?
>
My "SqueakOS"-kernel based on OSKit is exactly what you want: OSkit
is a toolkit to build operaring systems, it is very easy to built a 
kernel that includes only things you really need, e.g. The SqueakOS 
kernel does *not* include a scheduler. (And no virtual memory, no 
networking, no hardisk-driver, ...)

The advantage of OSkit (Vs. FreeDOS) is that you can use Linux or FreeBSD 
drivers. 
The main problem when writing an OS from scratch is that you would need 
to write *zillions* of drivers for the PC hardware (Network, SCSI, IDE, 
graphics, ....). Much work, not much fun. 

   Marcus 

-- 
Marcus Denker marcus at ira.uka.de phone at home:(0721)614235 @work:(0721)608-2749