Rust-Written Redox OS Enjoys Significant Performance Improvements

[ayumu]

Tangentially related: https://managarm.org/2023/12/31/end-of-year-update.html

[DMJC]

I tried it in a vm today. It's a so-so experience. Graphically it's smooth and good looking, and has a couple of demo games and an interactive periodic table that are good for showing off some of Redox's abilities. The terminal emulator responds to very basic commands such as ls and cd, but not much else beyond that.

I assume it's waiting on RustUtils to get completed before it'll support all the ls/cat/grep etc commands.

[sophisticles]

an OS targeting systems all the way back to the 486 doesn't work with fancy new peripherals on a bleeding-edge intel laptop? say it ain't so! /s

maybe try it again on a desktop system that's a few years older and has a normal USB mouse and keyboard.

LOL!

An Ice Lake lap top is "bleeping edge"?

Ice Lake processors where released in August 2019, nearly 5 years ago.

They also have a bunch of screenshots showing it running on a bunch of laptops:

https://www.redox-os.org/screens/

[rmfx]

I tried it in a vm today. It's a so-so experience. Graphically it's smooth and good looking, and has a couple of demo games and an interactive periodic table that are good for showing off some of Redox's abilities. The terminal emulator responds to very basic commands such as ls and cd, but not much else beyond that. I should read the manual, there's probably quite a few useful commands in there, I just didn't find most of them through guesswork. Pretty interesting experience though. It's certainly far advanced beyond something like TempleOS in terms of polish, but nowhere remotely near the useabliity of Haiku due to the lack of programs.

Qualifying an OS of so-so after playing 15 min in a vm, seeing it’s polished and smooth, but still concluding it is meh due lack of content from a quick overlook is the most lame and ungrateful review possible.

Do you even realize the work and knowledge needed to put together to simply make an OS that can run a basic command line ?
Here you have an OS made by a handful of people, fast and stable with a graphical UI, on its way to be able to run linux binaries, and you think it’s so-so because you didn’t know what to do with it…

People nowadays…

[Veto]

There's a lot more to building an RTOS than just being memory safe. Hell, memory safety isn't actually required at all. Most RTOSs don't offer it.

An RTOS is all about predictable performance. Not *fast* performance. An RTOS can be as slow as it likes. It just absolutey has to be *predictable.*

And there is a lot more to Rust and safety than just being memory safe. There is also a lot more to memory safety than offering Virtual Memory - if that is what you mean by most RTOSs not offering memory safety? That is because Virtual Memory is typically less predictable than direct addressing. However, it *is* common for the higher end RTOSs to use the MMU for process memory isolation. Even Open Source RTOSs offers this: https://docs.zephyrproject.org/lates...ry_domain.html

But yes, the keyword is *predictable*... Which Rust is more and C/C++ is less.

[NateHubbard]

An Ice Lake lap top is "bleeping edge"?

Possibly. You could insert all sorts of four letter words in there I suppose.

[andyprough]

I assume it's waiting on RustUtils to get completed before it'll support all the ls/cat/grep etc commands.

Probably so.

[andyprough]

Qualifying an OS of so-so after playing 15 min in a vm, seeing it’s polished and smooth, but still concluding it is meh due lack of content from a quick overlook is the most lame and ungrateful review possible.

Do you even realize the work and knowledge needed to put together to simply make an OS that can run a basic command line ?
Here you have an OS made by a handful of people, fast and stable with a graphical UI, on its way to be able to run linux binaries, and you think it’s so-so because you didn’t know what to do with it…

People nowadays…

That's a fair criticism. Let me respond with more of my notes.

I used Redox in a vm yesterday for a little over an hour. I would have spent more time, but right now there just isn't much to do unless you want to play Redox's version of an old Doom game or Redox's gravity ball game for an extended period of time. The beauty of Redox is that it is graphically very modern and capable and pleasant looking. Some of the demo programs, like the periodic chart, have sophisticated transitions and graphical interactions which are uncommon. So, it looks like a project that has some very bright and capable people creating this demo.

However - the downside is that it IS a demo. Everything feels like it's in a kind of kiosk mode, where you can play but you can't do much with it. Right now it doesn't seem very unix-y in its tools, probably because its inner workings aren't really exposed to me if I don't know rust. In that way, TempleOS is far more interesting to me, as I can spend days on end exploring it and exploring Terry Davis's strange design decisions. I can even re-write parts of TempleOS and recompile on the fly and either break it or enhance it if I'm able. Using Redox was more like watching an interesting TV show - not very interactive. I'm sure if I was a rust programmer it would be much more fascinating to me.

There are other OS's that are much farther along than Redox which have a similar reason for existence. TempleOS shows off the remarkable capabilities of HolyC. MenuetOS is an amazing entire OS written in assembly with an impressive ecosystem of programs. Haiku is a brilliant use of C++ to keep BeOS alive and has nearly enough applications for me to do some of my daily work. Haiku is certainly good enough to put on a laptop and take along on vacation and read books or watch movies or listen to music or do a variety of simple tasks.

Redox has stated its purpose on its FAQ page:

What is the purpose of Redox?
The main goal of Redox is to be a general-purpose OS, while maintaining security, reliability and correctness.
Redox aims to be an alternative to existing Unix systems (Linux/BSD), with the ability to run most Unix programs with only recompilation or minimal modifications.

That's a very lofty goal. The same FAQ says that "you will be able to do almost any task on most devices with high performance/security". Also a very lofty goal. I think Redox has a lot of potential, but right now what I downloaded and used is just a good looking demo from what I can tell. After 9 years in development, I think the probability that it ever reaches the state of "alternative to Unix" with "the ability to run most Unix programs" and being "able to do almost any task on most devices" is not looking terribly likely. Not without simply emulating or somehow quickly recompiling most of what already exists in the BSDs or in GNU/Linux. Writing everything (or even a significant portion) from scratch in a new programming language would take an enormous amount of time and resources.

But at the same time it is very cool and amazing for what it is. Well worth downloading and testing in the virtual manager of your choice.

[rmfx]

That's a fair criticism. Let me respond with more of my notes.

I used Redox in a vm yesterday for a little over an hour. I would have spent more time, but right now there just isn't much to do unless you want to play Redox's version of an old Doom game or Redox's gravity ball game for an extended period of time. The beauty of Redox is that it is graphically very modern and capable and pleasant looking. Some of the demo programs, like the periodic chart, have sophisticated transitions and graphical interactions which are uncommon. So, it looks like a project that has some very bright and capable people creating this demo.

However - the downside is that it IS a demo. Everything feels like it's in a kind of kiosk mode, where you can play but you can't do much with it. Right now it doesn't seem very unix-y in its tools, probably because its inner workings aren't really exposed to me if I don't know rust. In that way, TempleOS is far more interesting to me, as I can spend days on end exploring it and exploring Terry Davis's strange design decisions. I can even re-write parts of TempleOS and recompile on the fly and either break it or enhance it if I'm able. Using Redox was more like watching an interesting TV show - not very interactive. I'm sure if I was a rust programmer it would be much more fascinating to me.

There are other OS's that are much farther along than Redox which have a similar reason for existence. TempleOS shows off the remarkable capabilities of HolyC. MenuetOS is an amazing entire OS written in assembly with an impressive ecosystem of programs. Haiku is a brilliant use of C++ to keep BeOS alive and has nearly enough applications for me to do some of my daily work. Haiku is certainly good enough to put on a laptop and take along on vacation and read books or watch movies or listen to music or do a variety of simple tasks.

Redox has stated its purpose on its FAQ page:


That's a very lofty goal. The same FAQ says that "you will be able to do almost any task on most devices with high performance/security". Also a very lofty goal. I think Redox has a lot of potential, but right now what I downloaded and used is just a good looking demo from what I can tell. After 9 years in development, I think the probability that it ever reaches the state of "alternative to Unix" with "the ability to run most Unix programs" and being "able to do almost any task on most devices" is not looking terribly likely. Not without simply emulating or somehow quickly recompiling most of what already exists in the BSDs or in GNU/Linux. Writing everything (or even a significant portion) from scratch in a new programming language would take an enormous amount of time and resources.

But at the same time it is very cool and amazing for what it is. Well worth downloading and testing in the virtual manager of your choice.

Still not a valid criticism.

The problem is that you criticize the content, not the OS itself.
You base your review on _nothing_ that is bound to the OS design, the intrinsic, the code quality... It's a pure non-technical Walmart end-user point of view. Who cares at this point that there are not many preinstalled softwares bundled with it, it's not the point... The point is to develop a new type of OS with the best concepts, structure, and implementation possible. Things that you sadly didn't even consider while they are 9000x more important.

And you compare it to Temple OS....Seriously?
It's like comparing an electric racecar with a carbon frame to a 40 years old camping-bus and saying the camping-bus is a much better vehicle because there is a mattress and an ashtray....

[Developer12]

And there is a lot more to Rust and safety than just being memory safe. There is also a lot more to memory safety than offering Virtual Memory - if that is what you mean by most RTOSs not offering memory safety? That is because Virtual Memory is typically less predictable than direct addressing. However, it *is* common for the higher end RTOSs to use the MMU for process memory isolation. Even Open Source RTOSs offers this: https://docs.zephyrproject.org/lates...ry_domain.html

But yes, the keyword is *predictable*... Which Rust is more and C/C++ is less.

What the hell are you even talking about with memory safety? Yes, most RTOSs don't make use of virtual memory, and many run on systems where it isn't available.

If you bothered to read the comment I was replying to, they were implying that memory safety was something that rust would uniquely bring to RTOSs, but it isn't something they typically worry about. It's nice to have code that works, but that isn't the distinguishing feature of an RTOS. Predictable timing is.