YOUR next DESKTOP… QNX?
QNX has a long checkered history as an embedded operating system. QNX was always popular for being a genuine time operating system with a microkernel architecture. That is, kernel functions run as a set of coordinated tasks instead of as a single piece of code. A recent release of QNX 7 (see video, below) enables it to run on 64-bit desktop computers as well as [elahav] made a decision to deal with turning this embedded RTOS into a desktop operating system.
That may noise far-fetched, however QNX is a POSIX-compliant system as well as has all the features you’d expect in a system like Linux or BSD. It just isn’t aimed at the desktop market as well as as a result doesn’t have a great deal of tools for running the desktop. QNX isn’t the type of RTOS you’ll discover on an Arduino. It is a lot more typical in things like automobile systems (for example, it runs general Motor’s OnStar system).
He started with a tiny ITX board as well as installed QNX. Usually, you establish for an embedded system on a workstation as well as then just ship the code over to the target system, however [elahav] took the time to get a develop system working on the target. There was one problem. The built-in vi editor was primitive by contemporary standards. He is normally an emacs user, however even vim would be much better than the “stock” vi. While an emacs port would be possible, it would likewise need porting over a great deal of libraries, so his very first job was to get the vim source code to compile.
Turned out not to be as simple as he had hoped. The develop system expected specific GNU tools that didn’t exist yet (although common versions of the tools, like grep, did exist). So he had to figure out exactly how to cross compile vim. In retrospect, [elahav] made a decision he must have just ported the GNU tools first. He did have to eliminate some old code from vim that was aimed at an older version of QNX.
The rest of the experience went relatively well. He handled to develop SDL as well as port over some games. Qt exists on QNX, however with a configuration that favors the embedded system (for example, whatever shows full-screen). building Qt apps was possible, however without a appropriate window manager, it still wasn’t the desktop experience he wanted. A few weeks later he handled a window manager. keep in mind, QNX’s screen design is not X, so grabbing an existing piece of code wasn’t a likely option.
Is it practical? Maybe, although we didn’t see the actual code available. Is it desirable? most likely not, unless you are utilizing QNX already, as well as even then we aren’t sure. However, it is a excellent story of the type of difficulties included in making something offbeat useful, a issue we’ve pointed out before when you develop your own CPU. Of course, [elahav] started with a quite rich environment. If you want to see somebody bootstrap nearly everything, inspect out A2Z. as well as if you’ve been around awhile as well as believe you keep in mind one more QNX desktop environment, you aren’t wrong.