Syllable, AtheOS Archive

Kristian Van Der Vliet has implemented asynchronous input/output. This has been tested with QEmu, which shows increased performance both due to this and the also new implementation of memory-mapped files. A development build with async I/O is already available.

After Syllable Desktop 0.6.6 already brought a number of improvements to standards support, Kristian Van Der Vliet has now implemented the POSIX interface to memory-mapped files.

Recently, the first public version was released of the alpha development version of REBOL 3, the advanced programming language by Carl Sassenrath of Amiga OS fame. Now, native versions have also been released for Linux and Mac OS X. Like the private version of a year ago, the Linux version runs on Syllable Server. These versions are currently comparable to REBOL/Core 2, without the graphical system, and can be downloaded through here. REBOL is an important part of Syllable's cross-platform strategy.

New software packs were released in comparable versions for both Syllable Desktop and Syllable Server. Shell Essentials is a new collection pack with tools for the command line. Network Necessities with networking programs, Developer's Delight with developer tools and The Perl Pit with Perl and its modules were released in new versions with updated package collections. Also, Syllable was accepted for listing on DistroWatch.

As an experiment, Kaj de Vos ported the recently released Genode OS framework to Syllable Server. It does not run on Syllable Desktop yet, as this requires some more deep porting work to the Syllable kernel. Genode is a modular operating system framework with several components that are largely complementary to Syllable. The Syllable project wants to explore the opportunities to integrate these into Syllable.

Kristian Van Der Vliet tracked down and fixed the bug that prevented Syllable from booting off a USB device. The project published a new development build that will boot from a USB CD player. This means Syllable can now be installed in a regular way on machines that don't have an IDE CD player, such as the Asus Eee PC and other small laptops. Installing to a USB device, such as a memory stick, is not possible yet, due to further USB bugs that lock up the installation process. These are being investigated. The new development build also has the new Webster browser included.

Michael Saunders got Syllable Desktop to run on his new Asus Eee PC (screenshot). There is some work to do to support all hardware, but most functionality already works. Michael reports that video, audio, touchpad, USB and battery monitor all work. Widescreen video and network don't and there may be reliability problems with USB storage devices. As installing Syllable from a USB device doesn't work yet, Michael used an inventive method for installation. It can be done by imaging your Eee drive with the dd utility (from Linux), installing Syllable on it through QEmu and then dd'ing the image back to the real drive. Note that the drive number needs to be adjusted in the GrUB boot file. The project is looking into distributing Syllable especially for the Eee PC in this form.

Two new software build systems were ported to Syllable Desktop: OMake and CMake. They are available here. Both are cross-platform and both work on a higher level than the classic Make. However, OMake is a Make replacement (with a quite similar syntax, even), whereas CMake works on top of Make by generating traditional Makefiles and other project files. To meet one of Syllable's milestone objectives, and in keeping with the project's strive to reduce complexity and advance the state of the art, OMake was selected as the preferred make system for native Syllable projects. Support for OMake was implemented in Builder, Syllable's module-level build system. OMake itself will be added to a future Developer's Delight SDK. The Syllable system and its applications will migrate to it over time. Ported software will keep using their own internal build systems.

An outside contributor to Syllable going under the name Bean has rewritten the AFS filesystem driver for GRUB 2. The original driver was for GRUB 1 and was derived from the full AFS driver. This meant that the copyright could not be reassigned to the FSF, so the GRUB project didn't want to integrate the code. The new driver is much smaller and looks like it will be integrated into GRUB, so Syllable will have a new boot loader and maintenance will become much easier. Before that happens, though, more porting work needs to be done on GRUB 2 to integrate it in the build process and installer. Eventually, this will lead to EFI support and support by other operating systems to boot Syllable. Here is a separate test CD that is capable of booting an existing Syllable installation on disk. In addition, Ruwen Boehm got the newest version of PHP to work, so for the first time since AtheOS times there is a new PHP port. A binary package for version 5.2.5 is now available for download.

Kelly Wilson has ported Squeak to Syllable. Squeak is a multimedia environment based on the Smalltalk programming language. There are no video and sound drivers yet that interface between Squeak and Syllable, so the Squeak graphical environment is not available yet. However, headless Squeak programs that don't need a graphical user interface run, and this screenshot shows a web site in the ABrowse WebKit-based browser, produced by the Seaside web application framework.

After an extensive development period, the Syllable project has released Syllable Desktop 0.6.5 with improvements all over. As always there are bug fixes, most notably in USB and the network stack, leading to large reliability and performance improvements. LibUSB and SANE were ported, so there is now USB access from user space and support for scanners. There are new network and video drivers, including a unique S3 DeltaChrome driver that Arno Klenke wrote from scratch. Two new window decorators debut from John Aspras. CD burning ability is now integrated in the form of SimpleBurn and CDRTools. A new network preferences applet from Andrew Kennan was integrated, and also Arno Klenke's port of OpenBeFS. Many ports were upgraded and the system layout has been heavily reorganised. Files needed for compiling software have been split off in a separate package. This is also the release that harmonises a number of things between Syllable Desktop and Syllable Server. The full change log is here. Installation CDs, the upgrade, and images for emulators are here. Additional software can be found here.

The Syllable project has published the source code for Syllable Server. The code to build Syllable is maintained in Builder, the build system. There is a main repository of build specifications and overlays for Syllable Desktop and Syllable Server. The code for Server is now completely published in the source repository. A package of Builder (11 MB) for Syllable Server has been released that corresponds to Syllable Server 0.2 with a few fixes. The procedure to build Syllable Server will be the subject of an article in a future Syllable Newsletter.

The second issue of the Syllable Development Newsletter has been published. It contains thirteen pages of articles, interviews and the second instalment of Kristian's programming tutorial. The newsletter is accompanied again by a software pack, rounding up seven packages that were released since the first edition.

The Syllable project has published the first two preconfigured virtual machine images for trying out Syllable Server without installation. One is for VMware . It can also be used with QEmu and VirtualBox. The other is for other emulators such as Bochs, or also QEmu . The latter unpacks to a file of one gigabyte. Detailed instructions are here. Also, for history purposes, two images were published of the last version of AtheOS, Syllable's predecessor . Here is a screenshot of AtheOS running on Syllable.