Nanix: An idea for a modern, small, Unix-like operating system

zebmccorkle.u.asymptote.club

10 points·adamnemecek··8 comments

"...specifically designed to (1) take advantage of modern hardware, (2) fit on a single floppy disk..."

hmmm...

Yeah, that's the biggest issue here. The kernel is not large because the kernel devs suck at their job, it's large because the default build includes a bazillion drivers for a bazillion devices. When you build the kernel for precisely the devices that you need, the image is going to be a lot smaller.

I can imagine this Nanix OS as the OS for a hypervisor. The less code on the hypervisor level, the less code that can be compromised.

Is this an accurate view, or am I missing something?

There's little sense in reinventing the proverbial wheel when it already exists. NetBSD can already be paired down to fit on a floppy disk. Userland can be compiled in to a single crunchgen static binary.

tcc is a nice idea to add separately but wouldn't be ideal for making the tiniest kernel and binaries, since space optimization isn't quite as good with tcc.

back when I was a grad student, I fit linux (+ handful of ethernet drivers), X, vncviewer and rdesktop on a single floppy. Simple OS project demonstrating that one can strip out unwanted symbols from shared libraries and get better overall storage resource usage than simply statically linking all of one's binaries. Basically a thin client on a bootable floppy.

"Pared" down.

> [huger]: Is this a word?

Yes: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/huge

Meh. 25/30 meg ain’t huge.

And who uses floppies anyhow?

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