Single Application Operating System


 
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# 1  
Old 03-20-2011
Single Application Operating System

I am going to start an ambitious project for my senior year of college. Just as the title says:
I want to write a single application operating system that is dedicated to running only one application and none other. I need to build a bare bones UNIX operating system that will use provided binary files to run an open source music production application.
I plan on working on this over the next year with my professors and I will continue to develop after I graduate.
I am open to any and all languages. What do you think would work best?

Why:
I have older laptops that are obsolete (512 MB RAM with 1.0 GB processors) and I would like to dedicate them to running only one application. These laptops have a hard time just running Windows XP which leaves no room for running ANY applications. I dont want all the useless user friendly mess that comes with todays operating systems. Why else? Because this seems hard, so why not?Smilie
How:
I want to work directly with or right above the assembly language and keep any high level programming to a minimum.Smilie I need the computer to boot straight into the application, ie: I turn it on and it automatically starts the one application and dedicates the entire computer to running it.
I'm not going to come straight out with my idea on how to do this, but I would like to see what all the wizards out there think of this.

USB 2.0 MUST WORK Smiliebut is not important at this stage.
# 2  
Old 03-20-2011
If you are going to only have one application running why are you going to throw a complete operating system between it and the hardware? ("Operating system" would imply sophisticated intermediate level processing of hardware level routines controlling everything)

Unix implies multi-process, multi-user while the application probably needs in the order of IBM ROM Basic with some extensions.

Last edited by edfair; 03-20-2011 at 02:16 PM..
# 3  
Old 03-20-2011
Quote:
If you are going to only have one application running why are you going to throw a complete operating system between it and the hardware?
All peripherals will need to be added at some point. It will be running a digital audio workstation (DAW) that will eventually require USB, cd drive, other device support. I cant have all the system updates and bullsh that goes on in todays large scale operating systems, that is the plague when recording audio.

It will most definitely be a complete OS, but made to do only one thing: Run a DAW flawlessly.
# 4  
Old 03-20-2011
If you want to run only 1 application, you'll basically have to replace init. That, however, means that you won't have any access to automatic device integration (via udev in case of Linux), or other amenities, and especially no graphical display. Also, most audio editing applications require some kind of sound daemon, like Pulseaudio or ALSA, running.

One thing you could try is building a very restricted set of daemons on top of Linux from Scratch.
# 5  
Old 03-20-2011
You want to write a UNIX operating system from scratch for this, covering all possible hardware in the "old laptop" spectrum? I'm pretty sure there already are operating systems that run on old laptops, and it's taken decades of continuous effort to get them where it is already. Pretty sure you don't have that kind of time or developer base.

I don't think old laptops are even very GOOD at digital audio. Built-in sound devices are invariably garbage.

Just make a linux distro. You don't want auto-update? You have full control over what you include, rip it out. (And put up with the same program bugs forevermore, but whatever -- you must know what "no updates ever" implies if you asked for it.)
# 6  
Old 03-20-2011
Hi!
This may not be what You want to hear but there are so many stripped down OS-distributions already. Maybe it's part of Your work but I personally wouldn't go through re-inventing the wheel for every hardware that You will need support for. Unless that IS Your goal with Your studies.

FreeDOS, Linux, or BSD based. The have most of what You need for hardware support and fit on anything from a floppy to a credit card sized CD. And on lots hardware architectures. The first thing I would do is to take any of those, maybe even a normal distro, auto login a user (from inittab or tty1.conf) and start the desired application. No window managers or other fluff. Maybe You don't need a GUI? Even easier. Determine what You can remove in terms of services and unused programs. Most drivers are modularised. But all that is with regard to disc space, if it ain't running, it won't consume any RAM or CPU.

And please be aware that there is a big difference between what comes with the OS and the user environment, that's usually what makes the distributions unique. The OS (kernel and drivers) doesn't contain very much "user friendly mess". And that is a good thing!

Best regards,
Lakris
 
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