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Miloslav Ciz 2023-12-14 21:08:58 +01:00
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operating_system.md
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@ -49,6 +49,8 @@ What would an operating system designed by [LRS](lrs.md) principles look like? T
The basic idea for a universal LRS operating system is to be something more akin a mere **text [shell](shell.md)** (possibly [comun](comun.md) shell), we wouldn't probably even call it an operating system. A rough vision is something like **"[DOS](dos.md) plus a bit of [Unix philosophy](unix_philosophy.md)"**. The system would probably seem primitive by "[modern](modern.md) standards", but in a [good society](less_retarded_society.md) it would be sufficient as a universal operating system (i.e. not necessarily suitable for ALL purposes). The OS would in fact be more of a **program loader** (like e.g. the one seen in [Pokitto](pokitto.md)), running with the same privileges as other programs -- its purpose would NOT be to provide a safe environment for programs to run in, to protects user's data and possibly not even to offer a platform for programs to run on (for abstracting hardware away a non-OS [library](library.md) might be used instead), but rather to allow switching between different programs on a computer without having to reupload the programs externally, and to provide basic tools for managing the computer itself (such as browsing files, testing hardware etc.). This shell would basically allow to browse files, load them as programs, and maybe run simple scripts (e.g. in mentioned comun language), allowing things such as automatization of running several program (NOT in parallel but rather one by one) to collaborate on computing something.
An idea worth mentioning is also the possibility to have a have a distribution of this "operating system" that works completely without a file system, i.e. something aking a "big program" that has all the tools compiled into it, without the possibility to install or uninstall programs. Of course this doesn't mean ALL operating systems would in the world would work like this, it would just be a possibility for those that could benefit from it, e.g. very small wrist watch computers that don't wouldn't want and need to include hardware and software required for a mutable filesystem to work, since all they would need would be a few tools like stopwatch and calculator, plus they would gain the advantage of loading a program instantly. The tools to be "compiled in" could be chosen by the user before compilation to make a personalized "immutable distro".
Let's keep in mind that true LRS computers would be different from the current capitalist ones -- an operating system would only be optional, programs would be able to run on [bare metal](bare_metal.md) as well as under an OS, and operating systems would be as much compatible as possible. By this an OS might be seen as more of an extra tool rather than a platform.
The system might likely lack features one would nowadays call essential for an OS, such as multiple user support (no need if [security](security.md) is not an issue, everyone can simply make his own subdirectory for personal files), [virtual memory](virtual_memory.md), complex [GUI](gui.md) etc. There might even be no [multitasking](multitasking.md); a possibility to make a multitasking OS exists, but let's keep in mind that even such things as programs interacting via [pipes](pipe.md) may be implemented without it (using temporary buffer files into which one program's output is stored before running the next program).