On Wed, Mar 01, 2000 at 01:10:52AM +1100, David Murn wrote:
> On Tue, 29 Feb 2000, Alegria Loinaz. Inaki wrote:
>
> > I am a new participant in the list and after reading FAQs I have a couple
> > of questions:
> > - Is ELKS able to run executable programs from standard Linux?
>
> Not directly, since standard Linux programs are in 32bit code, ELKS is
> mainly for 16bit CPUs. Also, Linux uses ELF headers, ELKS doesnt.
>
> However, if your Linux code is small enough, there is no reason you cant
> compile it for ELKS, depending on what it does.
Just to add to the above, it is very easy to build executables on a Linux
system using a cross-compiler to run on ELKS.
>
> > - Is possible with ELKS to read the File System in the hard disk (I
> > suposse no, but I donīt know sure)
>
> You can read the minix filesystem on the harddisk. As yet this is the
> only fs that ELKS really supports. Both Linux and ELKS can read this, as
> can many other systems.
>
> > I am looking for a simple OS to use teaching (modifying the kernel) and
> > despite simplicity is very important, I'd like to be possible to load
> > pre-compiled programs and to have a file system in hard disk.
> >
> > Is ELKS a good choice for this or it is better an old version of the Linux
> > kernel?
>
> Either would be good. The main benefit of ELKS is that it is a LOT
> smaller and easier to demonstrate parts of the kernel. For example, the
> floppy driver in ELKS is ~1500 lines, in Linux, its around ~4500
> lines. Which would you rather try and explain? :)
>
One of the initial goals of ELKS was to make something suitable for use in
teaching. The kernel is tiny compared to even early version of Linux,
and all the subsytems have been written to be as simple as possible.
Al
