Haiku OS Gaining Ground On UEFI, FreeBSD Compatibility Layer, Remote Debugging

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Haiku OS Gaining Ground On UEFI, FreeBSD Compatibility Layer, Remote Debugging

For those interested in the BeOS-inspired Haiku open-source operating system, they have issued their latest monthly progress report to end out 2016...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=BeOS-Haiku-December-Ends-2016

[Kemosabe]

With a good performance Raspberry Pi Image this project would gain so much more traction...

[starshipeleven]

FreeBSD compatibility layer? I thought it made more sense to have a Linux compatibility layer instead (all else equal).

is Haiku more similar to FBSD than to Linux so it's easier to have a compatibility layer for FBSD?

[starshipeleven]

With a good performance Raspberry Pi Image this project would gain so much more traction...

Yep, everything is better if it has a Raspi image these days. (not kidding)

[petete]

FreeBSD compatibility layer? I thought it made more sense to have a Linux compatibility layer instead (all else equal).

is Haiku more similar to FBSD than to Linux so it's easier to have a compatibility layer for FBSD?

It's a source compatibility layer for easier porting of drivers. They use FBSD instead of linux because of the licence.

[starshipeleven]

It's a source compatibility layer for easier porting of drivers. They use FBSD instead of linux because of the licence.

No wait a sec, aren't most linux drivers written with MIT or other friendly licenses anyway?

[Luke_Wolf]

No wait a sec, aren't most linux drivers written with MIT or other friendly licenses anyway?

Generally yes, I imagine it was a matter of preference rather than technical reason personally.

[pabloski]

No wait a sec, aren't most linux drivers written with MIT or other friendly licenses anyway?

And:

1. there are many more drivers in Linux than FreeBSD
2. FreeBSD is currently porting Linux drivers in various areas ( graphics in particular )

I suspect the same advocating porting Haiku to the FreeBSD kernel are the ones choosing to develop a FreeBSD compatibility layer. I don't know if this will be a good choice or not, I hope they have thought this out very well.

[starshipeleven]

I don't know if this will be a good choice or not, I hope they have thought this out very well.

Yeah, I hope they don't get to the point of porting FBSD-> Linux compatibility layer too so they can run a compatibility layer over a compatibility layer to run Linux drivers in the end, as it would be a bit comical.
Afaik for most GPU makers (Intel iGPU for example or any AMD) don't have a official FBSD driver version and that is one of the reasons FBSD is using its own layer to clone such GPU drivers from Linux.

So if they just make a FBSD compatibility layer they are basically limiting themselves to NVIDIA's blob, which makes me scratch my head a bit.

[Luke_Wolf]

Yeah, I hope they don't get to the point of porting FBSD-> Linux compatibility layer too so they can run a compatibility layer over a compatibility layer to run Linux drivers in the end, as it would be a bit comical.
Afaik for most GPU makers (Intel iGPU for example or any AMD) don't have a official FBSD driver version and that is one of the reasons FBSD is using its own layer to clone such GPU drivers from Linux.

So if they just make a FBSD compatibility layer they are basically limiting themselves to NVIDIA's blob, which makes me scratch my head a bit.

Please define what "Official" means in the context of open source code. FreeBSD prior to going the current route was taking the kernel driver and rewriting it to follow BSD designs as opposed to Linux, problem is... graphics drivers are ever changing things and FreeBSD doesn't have anywhere near the manpower to maintain that kind of fork, and the AMD and Intel employees are targeting Linux alone, as a result they fell severely behind. So instead of modifying the driver to fit BSD designs they decided it was less effort to make BSD compatible with Linux upstream designs and extended OFED's compatibility layer to be able to support things like graphics drivers, and are now at compatibility with Linux kernel 4.9 in FreeBSD -CURRENT.