[SqNOS] Porting and debugging SqueakNOS vs. other OSs

[Derek Peschel]

Hi everybody,

Karl Romberg from squeak-dev mentioned SqueakNOS in response to my questions
about Squeak on the bare metal and about self-virtualization.

Has anyone here worked on SqueakNOS and the kernel of a more conventional OS?
I'm curious whether SqueakNOS's structure makes it easier or harder to port
than other OSs.  From your description of USB problems I guess the lack of
documentation and tools are problems for you, as they seem to be for other
OSs.

What about debugging SqueakNOS with VMware or something similar?  Has any-
one tried, and is SqueakNOS's architecture easier or harder to debug than
other OSs?  The VM interprets bytecodes, which creates one of the classic
barriers to easy debugging, but perhaps the VM is also simpler than other
OS kernels.

Thanks,

-- Derek