nimkernel

A small kernel written in Nim (by dom96)

Nimkernel Alternatives

Similar projects and alternatives to nimkernel

NOTE: The number of mentions on this list indicates mentions on common posts plus user suggested alternatives. Hence, a higher number means a better nimkernel alternative or higher similarity.

nimkernel reviews and mentions

Posts with mentions or reviews of nimkernel. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2023-12-03.
  • D Programming Language
    13 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 3 Dec 2023
    > kernel developers do not allow third party runtimes in the kernel. Even meager Rust's "panic" runtime is a contentious

    Much in Linux is contentious :-) which is why the module system is nice. A kernel module for C code requires no permission from Linux-core unless you need it distributed with the kernel (which, yes, might be required for "credibility" - but critically also might not). It may require many decls to access various kernel APIs, but those can be (semi-)automated or just done as-needed. So, Linux kernel policy is not so relevant (at best) which is what I meant by "no special support" (admittedly brief). Kernel coding is always a bit trickier, and you may need to build up some support code to make integration nice, though as well as decl generators.

    > Can one disable runtime in Nim completely -- no GC, no exceptions?

    To answer your question, and as discussed elsewhere in this subthread, Nim has many options for memory management.. only stdlib seq/string really needs automatic methods. One can disable the runtime completely via os:standalone and statically check that no exceptions are raised with Nim's effect system (and there are also both setjmp & goto based exception impls which may/may not be workable in Linux/BSD kernel module settings). As "proof more by example", a few people have written OS kernels in Nim recently[1,2] and there was another toy kernel long ago[3].

    People have also written OS kernels in Go which "has a GC and runtime".[4] So, I acknowledge it's not quite the same example, but I also see no fundamental blockers for kernel modules.

    [1] https://github.com/khaledh/axiom

    [2] https://prosepoetrycode.potterpcs.net/2023/01/a-barebones-ke...

    [3] https://github.com/dom96/nimkernel

    [4] https://github.com/mit-pdos/biscuit/

  • Ask HN: Why did Nim not catch-on like wild fire as Rust did?
    16 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 25 Jun 2023
    Niceness is subjective, but Nim is just as valid an addition to that group. Nim compiles to C and has had an --os=standalone mode for like 10 years from its git history, and as mentioned else-thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36506087) can be used for Linux kernel modules. Multiple people have written "stub OSes" in it (https://github.com/dom96/nimkernel & further along https://github.com/khaledh/axiom).

    While it can use clang as a backend, Nim does not rely upon LLVM support like Zig or Rust (pre-gcc-rust working). Use on embedded devices is fairly popular: https://forum.nim-lang.org/search?q=embedded (or web search).

    Latency-wise, for a time, video game programming was a perceived "adoption niche" or maybe "hook" for Nim and games often have stringent frame rendering deadlines. If you are interested in video games, you might appreciate https://github.com/shish/rosettaboy which covers all but Ada in your list with Nim being fastest (on one CPU/version/compiler/etc). Note, however, that cross-PL comparisons are often done by those with much "porting energy" but limited familiarity with any but a few of the PLs. A better way to view it is that "Nim responds well to optimization effort" (like C/Ada/C++/Rust/Zig).

  • OSDev in Nim
    1 project | /r/nim | 8 Aug 2022
  • A small kernel written in Nim
    1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 14 Jan 2022
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