Re: GNU Mach on L4

[Ognyan Kulev]

On Thu, Jun 07, 2001 at 03:50:52AM +0200, Farid Hajji wrote:
> > GNU Mach have i386-specific parts.  Why not replacing i386-specific with L4
> > specific and thus make a new architecture for GNU Mach.  Then the real
> > microkernel will be L4, and all other tasks will see GNU Mach (and L4 if
> > they want to).  This is the cheapest porting of Hurd on L4 (development
> > time, debugging, maintainance).  After that we can play L4 and GNU Mach
> > simultaneously and gradually move to pure L4.

> The idea to link L4 with the current Mach sources, could well lead to
> this kind of (hybrid) machemu we're looking for.

Now i see Machemu and Mach on L4 are essentially the same.  Only machemu is
a library with Mach's architecture-independent code that calls L4, and Mach
on L4 is the same in a separate task.  I mean that Mach does scheduling too.

> Do you have more concrete plans or ideas 'bout this hybrid Mach/L4 thingy?
> I'd love to hear more about it; as it looks very promising new idea.

Nope.  The great idea is to port GNU Mach to L4 ``architecture'' like
porting to Sparc.  Instead of writing assembler you call L4.  Exokernel is a
good choice too.  But in the long way we want L4, don't we?

L4 is not my priority now.  First i want to pass all the GNU Mach source and
make it perfect :) I plan to make a very clear documentation about GNU Mach
with all the semantics and add UML diagrams.  Not just UML but representing
the whole classes and associations in GNU Mach, later Hurd, glibc, user
translators.  Hopefully it will happen this summer (for GNU Mach only).  I
just want a solid ground for working on Hurd.  The working of all people
eventually interested in Hurd.

Regards
-- 
Ognyan Kulev <address@hidden>, "\"Programmer\""