stshell VS u-boot

It's slowly getting traction - Kotlin on Android has a "live update" feature (in development, only available in alpha release), for example. Multiple less mainstream languages also offer the feature. Nim got it in the last major release, for example. V has it as one of the base features. Erlang and Elixir had it since forever. Common Lisp as well. Racket and Clojure are a little more limited than CL, but also support it. Many interpreted languages offer some degree of this, either by default (JavaScript) or as a library/package (Python, Ruby).

In general, programming language features take about 20 to 30 years to go from obscure niche implementation into the mainstream. Look at lambdas - anonymous function literals - they're now everywhere, including Java and C++. Ten years ago, though, only some scripting languages had it. The feature itself is as old as the bones of the Earth (LISP, 1960, 63 years old). The same is true for many other "advanced" features. I think this is tied to generational changes - each generation of programmers has a chance to bring one or two lesser known features into mainstream, and then they're content with that. Other features have to wait for the next generation to discover them.

As for Smalltalk - I made a mistake and based the implementation on GNU Smalltalk, which is unmaintained. I should have gone with Smalltalk/X, Visual Works, or (begrudgingly) Pharo (or Cuis). I started the project as yet another attempt at making a MUD, but then changed focus to making a productive command-line-based programming env for Smalltalk. Then I changed my mind again and tried to make it into a usable shell. Here's the project: https://github.com/piotrklibert/stshell/ The screenshots focus on the REPL/shell side, but in the source you'll see things like "server", "player", and "world". There are a few locations IIRC and you can move your character between them still. It was an interesting project, but without a clear vision of what it should be it lost focus and I left it to rot after a while :(

> We need better shells.

Obviously. I don't think this is the most important missing part, though. I would say it differently: we need way, way better REPLs.

IPython is an example of a REPL that's passable as a shell. It can run in a terminal and has a GUI version based on Qt, which allows displaying images inline. You can drop into a "real" shell with a single `!` character (you get pipes, output capture, and (Python) variable interpolation), and it even has some syntactic shortcuts for the parts where Python's own syntax is irritatingly verbose. If you like Python, then IPython can be your day-to-day shell right now. You just need to remember not to start ncurses programs from within qtconsole (works ok in terminal). I used it for a few years when I was forced to work on Windows. Before my time, I heard it was popular to use tclsh as a shell on Windows.

I think that it proves that almost any language can be used as a shell, as long as its REPL is as rich and featureful enough. Since you can use Python as a shell, which as a language is not exactly the epitome of terseness and expressiveness, you could definitely make do with almost any other interpreted language, too. The problem is that very, very few languages have REPLs that are anywhere near IPython. It's so bad sometimes that you're advised to use `rlwrap` just to get basic line editing and history!

I've been working on a new shell based on GNU Smalltalk[1]. I really like the syntax - or lack of thereof - and being able to dump an image at any time seemed like a good idea. The only change I needed was to add the `|>` pseudo-operator, which puts what's on the left into parens. Being able to introspect the running session was my primary motivation: I wanted to make the shell and the whole environment as discoverable as possible. I wrote some code for that and then realized that the default REPL uses readline from C, so it freezes the entire VM when waiting for input (including all background threads). My workaround was to set up a socket server and connect to it via rlwrapped telnet...

Anyway, I think "do we need a new shell" is the wrong question; instead, we should focus on improving REPLs to the point where a separate shell becomes unnecessary.

[1] https://github.com/piotrklibert/stshell

coreboot just initializes the hardware, the logo is something that the payload displays: https://www.coreboot.org/Payloads

The most typically used payload is u-boot: https://docs.u-boot.org/en/latest/

u-boot supports specifying splash screens via "splashfile", but it seems only bmp and maybe some raw image format are supported: https://github.com/u-boot/u-boot/blob/2f0282922b2c458eea7f85...

In other words, no support for png, which this exploit uses :). That doesn't mean that coreboot/u-boot aren't written in C though which is a language known for its vulnerabilities.

Probably a better example than WiFi would be the on-chip SDRAM controller. It's always somebody's IP and there's a blob in the boot firmware that's just binary register settings. Like so:

https://github.com/u-boot/u-boot/blob/master/arch/riscv/dts/...

Hello, It's my understanding that the following OSS software is used in the AtGames Legends family of products. Specifically: "Das U-Boot" https://github.com/u-boot/u-boot GPL-2.0+ Linux Kernel https://github.com/torvalds/linux GPL-2.0 The AtGames website at https://www.atgames.us/pages/credits does not contain the source code used in these products. Specifically, the GPL requires that if any modifications are made to GPL code, you must make the source code available to the users of the program as described in the GPL, and they must be allowed to redistribute and modify it as described in the GPL. Any modification to u-boot or the Linux Kernel adding the ability to boot a device must be made available to users of the program. Please see the following links regarding acceptable use of GPL software: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#GPLRequireSourcePostedPublic https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#WhyDoesTheGPLPermitUsersToPublishTheirModifiedVersions https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#GPLCommercially https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#GPLInProprietarySystem https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#DistributingSourceIsInconvenient Please let this request serve as written notice of a request for source code for the OSS software used in the following products: HA2810, HA2811, HA2812 AtGames Legends Core Puck HA2819 AtGames Legends Core Max HA8800, HA8801, HA8802 AtGames Legends Ultimate HA8810, HA8812 AtGames Legends Ultimate Mini HA8819, HA8819C AtGames Legends Pinball (Model unknown) AtGames Legends Pinball Micro At this point in time, AtGames is in violation of the GPL and should work to return to compliance by publishing the requested source code and making it available to users of the products.

Upstream u-boot also supports quite a lot of boards: https://github.com/u-boot/u-boot/tree/master/arch/arm/dts

git clone https://github.com/u-boot/u-boot make smdk5250_defconfig Makefile:40: *** missing operator. Stop.

Hey everyone, if this question is off-topic I apologize in advance and if you can redirect me into correct channel or any other source where I can ask question I would happily do, for now I think this is the best place to ask. I daily drive arch and wanted to run freeBSD/riscv64 image on qemu following this https://wiki.freebsd.org/riscv#QEMU_Emulator and u-boot guide: https://github.com/u-boot/u-boot/blob/master/doc/board/emulation/qemu-riscv.rst However it seems I'm doing something wrong and compilation results in error here is all additional info: https://pastebin.com/72shccGa

The normal way this is done is the DDR training blob is just embedded into the bootloader like any other data, and the bootloader loads it into the PMU. Same exact end result, minus involving a Cortex-M4 core for no reason and minus sticking the blob in external flash for no reason. Here, this is how U-Boot does it on every other platform:

https://github.com/u-boot/u-boot/blob/master/drivers/ddr/imx...

Same code, just running on the main CPU because it is absolutely pointless running it on another core, unless you're trying to obfuscate things to appease the FSF. And then the blob gets appended to the U-Boot image post-build:

https://github.com/u-boot/u-boot/blob/master/tools/imx8m_ima...

Purism went out of their way and wasted a ton of engineering hours just to create a more convoluted process with precisely the same end result, because somehow all these extra layers of obfuscation made the blob not a blob any more in the FSF's eyes.

The RK3399 LPDDR4 training code is open-source (albeit rather impenetrable to read) - implementations exist in coreboot, u-boot, and levinboot, so closed source firmware isn't required. I'm afraid I don't know answers to the other questions.