Operating systems and their users

Mounsier I agree that most of Debian and Red Hat based distro are less fun. But you haven't tried or learnt one of two system in here.

• Void provide you a good and simple system (no systemd). User space isn't clean but to be honest, it is a nice experience if you need flexible and simple Linux distro.
• Recently I have tried NixOS (yes, it have systemd and it run Linux kernel) but it is not Linux that why some OpenBSD users I know they love it. Let me repeat "this is another Operating System", you only have to learn Nix and systemd to manage your system. With only one Nix config file or multiple Nix config files you don't have to tinker with most of mess software in Linux. Also you can rollback to profile if thing went wrong, mix different version, have unstable or stable packages and provide you enough flexible to play with software. Don't believe it then learn Nix you will know. I always feel happy with it. Sadly due the documentation lack some of information, it can be a minus point but probably their community will improve this in the near future. I still learn more about it and I can have some bad advice here if someone want can point it, I appreciate that.

I haven't met any Void or NixOS elitist before especially NixOS. I don't care about userspace that much, if I want to know how software work I always read manual or documentation about it.

I guess I'll expand on what I wrote in another comment about linux and windows users.

When I first discovered linux/unix, part of the attraction was the Free Software movement. I am far less zealous about that than I am now, but I still think free software is incredibly important. The community around linux at the time (approx 5 years ago, possibly more) seemed focused on the free software side of things, rather than whether or not you can game or whatever else.

These days, go to any popular linux space online and one of the things that is brought up is how better gaming is on linux that it used to be, even better than windows in some case. All of your proprietary web apps (zoom, teams, netflix etc, etc) work on linux too. I think it's great that more people are introduced to other OS's, but the selling point now seems to be how great it is you can use a free operating system to use proprietary software (like Steam). Further, Linux is heavily influenced by massive, faceless multi-national corporations (including Microsoft) that don't have the interests of end users in mind.

I still like Linux and use it, but the community has changed a great deal imo.

pin I think artificially limited hardware is a bigger problem. Like, my mediocre Samsung Galaxy is quite a machine, but Google has the key. That's why it only runs "apps" on top of multiple virtual layers, far away from the machine. I'm not interested in creating anything for that. Unfortunately, these "ecosystems" are growing to mainstream for everything with a CPU. How long will we keep the ability to boot a PC with anything that is hardware-compatible?

MG_ This indeed is a problem, but on the other hand we have complete RISC-V systems able to boot e.g. Linux on hardware for a hobby budget.

—▷ https://github.com/smunaut/iCE40linux

Sure 32bit RISC-V on (iirc:) a 2 digit MHz speed and 32 MBytes RAM is not gaming laptop, but the toolchain for iCE40 chips (Icestorm) is free of attached strings and bigger chips need non-free toolchains or the toolchain formerly known as Symbiflow, which is a monster with a size measured in Gigabytes.

He has some videos on YT too, but they exceed my attention span by dimensions.

Let's give such projects a chance. A system on one or even many 'cheap' FPGAs with a free toolchain small enough to run on that system itself is not far away.

That will be a breakthrough!

Imagine inline-Verilog as additional alternative to inline-assembler in languages! I've seen a proof-of concept for that too, but as single compiler, not self hosted, not an OS.

—▷ https://forum.mystorm.uk/t/exploring-high-level-synthesis-on-ice40/284

So not all is bad: Some trends are scary, others promise interesting perspectives.

yeti I have seen things about it regarding re-creation of 8-bit systems. Everything like 68000K, 6502 or Z80 is no problem.
Does it actually have a series of pins that are wired into the FPGA core, so you can integrate multiple communication interfaces? That would be cool for a cluster/grid-like system that acts like 1 machine.

MG_ Does it actually have a series of pins that are wired into the FPGA core, so you can integrate multiple communication interfaces?

My babelfish still is under-caffeinated, so I might not (yet) understand the question completely.

A FPGA is like a breadboard in a chip. You can load a configuration into it, that defines like which schematics it shall behave. One typically looks at it like logic gates and some custom "blocks" for special tasks, but lots of them is logic represented as look up tables. Depending on the chip there are different amounts of pins to the outside. Probably most FPGAs now are BGA chips which are the apex of mean for the hobbyist solderer, but as long as one only buys complete boards, that won't even matter. So yes, whatever you mean with communication interfaces, it probably can be turned into a bitstream that's pushed into the FPGA and communicate with the outside through the pins you defined.

I'm mentioning iCE40 chips and their toolchain because they were the first ones that got understood well enough to build a free toolchain and their boards are on the low end of the impact to the hobby budget. A system that can rebuild itself from schematics (hardware) to installed OS completely with all toolchains for FPGA and compilers for the CPUs in the FPGA is doable. The breakthrough would be the combination of doing this with only open software and for a hobby budget. Some of these chips even are solderable for hobbyists and if using multiple of them instead of one huge FPGA, such a "digital amoeba"(?) could regenerate components independently, maybe even without reboots in some cases.

Some small but nevertheless impressive FPGA examples can be seen in your browser:

–▷ https://8bitworkshop.com/v3.9.0/?platform=verilog&file=tank.v

Wow! It can use Silice now too? Last time I looked at it, only Verilog was supported. Silice looks more familiar to most coders than Verilog:

–▷ https://8bitworkshop.com/v3.9.0/?platform=verilog&file=rototexture.ice

So repeating my thought from above: Not all IT now is operating systems on locked down hardware and apps jailed in emulators for incapacitated users. There are some exciting things showing up on the horizon.

Stay ommmmmmptimistic!