From: Kyle Schmitt <kyleaschmitt@...>
Date: 2009-06-04T22:15:31+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby OS

On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 3:14 AM, Sparky Mat <max@sparkymat.net> wrote:
> I was considering porting the Ruby 1.9 VM to bare metal (something
> similar to Cleese - http://code.google.com/p/cleese/). I was wondering
> if someone is already working on this. The end goal is to have a Ruby
> OS, with everything running on the VM. I have yet to analyze the
> complete changes needed.


Umm, have you thought perhaps of using an existing kernel and just
having one binary, that being ruby?  You could then build your whole
userspace on top of that.

I've toyed with the idea, but never had the time to really do it.

It's easy, take a linux, BSD (or any other "Real OS"™), and add an
entry into the bootloader, telling it that the init program is
whatever binary or executable script you wish.  You could add entries
for irb, a commodore 64 basic interpreter, and an apple-basic
interpreter in less than 5 minutes.

I know just booting into irb or commodore basic may count as an OS
from the 8-bit days, but it really doesn't cut it now days :)  So
after proving it works to yourself, try writing your own init as a
ruby 1.9 script.

my 2¢

--Kyle