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Bringing SerenityOS to real hardware, one driver at a time

(sdomi.pl)
309 points LorenDB | 4 comments | 08 Jan 25 16:54 UTC | HN request time: 0.664s | source
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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.
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quux ◴[08 Jan 25 20:50 UTC] No.42638309[source]▶
One of Serenity's philosophical decisions is that as much as possible they build everything themselves from scratch. So even if NetBSD's drivers would be easy to adapt and have a compatible license they probably wouldn't go that route and would instead write their own drivers.
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rollcat ◴[09 Jan 25 08:54 UTC] No.42643252[source]▶
This is a noble and worthy goal in itself. Too much software development nowadays is just copying or gluing existing code. Clean-room implementations ensure we (collectively) still have the wits to rebuild and maintain the difficult parts.
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1. btreecat ◴[09 Jan 25 12:55 UTC] No.42644843[source]▶
It also means we burn time and energy "rediscovering" the same knowledge we failed to better preserve and communicate.

I'm all for greenfield when appropriate but I also get more quality work done standing on giants.

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2. rollcat ◴[09 Jan 25 12:58 UTC] No.42644869[source]▶
The knowledge is already preserved. It's about keeping the muscles fit.
3. quux ◴[09 Jan 25 16:52 UTC] No.42647470[source]▶
Rediscovering the same knowledge has kind of been the point of Serenity OS since the project's inception.
4. mrweasel ◴[09 Jan 25 18:38 UTC] No.42648562[source]▶
You may also discover a new and better way to solve an old problem.

For most things, build on the work of others, but every now that then, we should check if those "giants" actually found the best solution, so that we may chance direction if we're heading down the wrong path.