Mastodawn

If you missed my talk with Xobs at #39c3, the recording is now up: https://media.ccc.de/v/39c3-xous-a-pure-rust-rethink-of-the-embedded-operating-system

Learn about Xous, the pure-Rust OS we've been working on, and the Baochip-1x, a full custom silicon chip that will soon be available, purpose-built to run Xous!

Xous: A Pure-Rust Rethink of the Embedded Operating System

Xous is a message-passing microkernel implemented in pure Rust, targeting secure embedded applications. This talk covers three novel aspe...

media.ccc.de

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LogicalErzor Dec 31

@bunnie clarification question: what’s the use case for this mmu, open source chip? is it meant to be a raspberry pi competitor (eg. targeted for hobbyists) or is it targeted for enterprises where devices are made with this particular chip (eg. a new low cost game console)?

im also curious how hard it would be to for engineers/users to transition from linux to xous. would it be hard since xous doesnt comply with posix?

great talk btw!

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bunnie Dec 31

@Logical_Error "use case" - I think of it as a general purpose MCU with some bonus security features. I personally am developing systems around it targeted at authentication tokens, but I don't mean that to be a box into which it is defined. The emphasis on open source means that everyone is invited to use it however they see fit.

The intention is not for Xous to be a desktop replacement - the transition comparison is more like going from say, Zephyr or ThreadX to Xous. It's an embededd OS so the harder challenge is porting code from one ecosystem to another. Because we are Rust, we already don't have source-language compatibility that C-based OSes would have. So maybe the biggest ecosystem you could copy paste code out of is Tock, another Rust-based OS.

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gkrnours Mar 3

@bunnie I'm curious if it would be possible to drive a mnt reform with one.
For context, mnt reform (classic/pocket/next) are open hardware laptop with cpu and memory on child board using "standard" 200pin SO-DIMM connector. Here, I understand "drive" as a baochip on the "computing" board that is able to read the keyboard input and display image on the built-in display.

I don't know if it would make sense but I'm curious

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bunnie Mar 4

@gkrnours The baochip is fairly limited in I/O, so any application like this would require some helper to expand the I/O, creating a bottleneck and thus making performance less than desired. So I would guess it is not strictly impossible, but it's probably also not going to work as well as desired.