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    Bringing SerenityOS to real hardware, one driver at a time

    (sdomi.pl)
    309 points LorenDB | 15 comments | 08 Jan 25 16:54 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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    Santosh83 ◴[08 Jan 25 18:46 UTC] No.42637177[source]▶
    Read somewhere that it is relatively easy to adapt NetBSD's drivers into a custom kernel... maybe Serenity folks can go that way? Device drivers are huge obstacle for any fledgling OS.
    replies(6): >>42637487 #>>42638178 #>>42638309 #>>42639168 #>>42642231 #>>42665209 #
    mysterydip ◴[08 Jan 25 19:18 UTC] No.42637487[source]▶
    > Device drivers are a huge obstacle for any fledgling OS.

    I've wondered if new/hobby OSes would fare better by starting out targeting a popular single board computer like a raspberry pi? A mostly fixed set of hardware to make/get drivers for and test your system on.

    replies(6): >>42637523 #>>42638258 #>>42639203 #>>42639284 #>>42639368 #>>42646433 #
    1. yjftsjthsd-h ◴[08 Jan 25 19:23 UTC] No.42637523[source]▶
    I've also argued in favor of that; I don't actually like Pis personally, but they're a super common, cheap enough, easy to acquire system and that's huge.
    replies(1): >>42637995 #
    2. FuriouslyAdrift ◴[08 Jan 25 20:15 UTC] No.42637995[source]▶
    Raspberry Pi's are highly proprietary for hardware blobs...
    replies(5): >>42638061 #>>42638095 #>>42638097 #>>42638150 #>>42638235 #
    3. joshmarinacci ◴[08 Jan 25 20:22 UTC] No.42638061[source]▶
    It also documented far better than any other easily accessible hardware. I’d pick the Pi over any other real hardware target.
    replies(3): >>42638134 #>>42638305 #>>42639897 #
    4. jazzyjackson ◴[08 Jan 25 20:25 UTC] No.42638095[source]▶
    Well unless they want to target PowerPC and make interested parties buy a Raptor Talos workstation what else is open enough for you? (Actually I would support this) Are there RISCV systems that are blobless?
    replies(1): >>42640428 #
    5. yjftsjthsd-h ◴[08 Jan 25 20:25 UTC] No.42638097[source]▶
    Sure, that's one of the reasons I don't like them. But AFAIK that's not an impediment to running a custom OS, so I think for a lot of projects the tradeoff is good.
    6. FuriouslyAdrift ◴[08 Jan 25 20:29 UTC] No.42638134{3}[source]▶
    The few devs I know in that space prefer the various Beaglebone SBCs
    replies(1): >>42638256 #
    7. tssva ◴[08 Jan 25 20:30 UTC] No.42638150[source]▶
    And yet there is a wide variety of operating systems available for the RPi, so it doesn't seem to be too much of a hurdle in practice.
    replies(1): >>42642140 #
    8. fngjdflmdflg ◴[08 Jan 25 20:42 UTC] No.42638235[source]▶
    I think the replies to this post may be missing the point? AIUI The raspi CPU drivers being closed makes it actually pretty hard to write an open driver for it. So you would need raspberry pi or their CPU supplier to write the driver for you, which they wouldn't do for a small OS. It took multiple years to support raspi 4 in mainline Linux and AFAIK raspi 5 still does not have a fully functioning mainline driver. That's why Raspberry Pi OS exists. You would pick a CPU that has open drivers because it would be easier to write your own for a different operating system.
    9. beng-nl ◴[08 Jan 25 20:44 UTC] No.42638256{4}[source]▶
    +1 here. Peak beaglebone DX to me was the beaglebone white. Full Soc documentation, and only a single usb cable to carry power, jtag, and serial.

    A gem of a device and hmm maybe I should write some code for one again..

    10. vdupras ◴[08 Jan 25 20:50 UTC] No.42638305{3}[source]▶
    I don't know where this idea that the RPi has good hardware documentation comes from. One glaring example is its DWC USB controller. Sure, it has a Linux driver that is open source, but its datasheet is not publicly available!

    So if you want to develop your own driver for it, you have to second guess its documentation by reading at the driver's comments. This is bad.

    11. mardifoufs ◴[08 Jan 25 23:47 UTC] No.42639897{3}[source]▶
    What do you mean by documented? Sure we have a general idea of how stuff works, and some implementations can even serve as a reference but almost nothing is documented in an official sense. Your average Chinese SBC is much, much better documented, in the sense that the SOCs are at least officially documented. The Broadcom soc isn't.
    12. cmiller1 ◴[09 Jan 25 01:04 UTC] No.42640428{3}[source]▶
    Hey, if they target PowerPC I could run it on my eMac!
    13. ori_b ◴[09 Jan 25 06:12 UTC] No.42642140{3}[source]▶
    As a maintainer of one of these OSes that runs on the pi (though not the person that did the port): no, it's a pretty big issue.
    replies(1): >>42644668 #
    14. tssva ◴[09 Jan 25 12:36 UTC] No.42644668{4}[source]▶
    What issues did the proprietary blobs cause versus porting to other arm based SBCs without them?
    replies(1): >>42648100 #
    15. ori_b ◴[09 Jan 25 17:54 UTC] No.42648100{5}[source]▶
    It's not so much the proprietary blobs, as the complete lack of documentation and debuggability for the peripherals. The PC platform, and several other SBCs, are either well documented, or at least give you the possibility of obtaining hardware with documentation.

    That, combined with general flakiness (eg, power delivery issues for peripherals on older pis), and you end up with users blaming the software for hardware issues.

    It's just not very fun to develop an OS for.