Posts made by Schol-R-LEA

OK, the point about GPL is a very good one; I wasn't planning on using GPL per se, but I did mean to use a similarly permissive license such as CC0 that would be compatible with it (I am pretty sure CC0 is, but I would need to check).

As for emulation, yes, that was my intention; I was looking ahead to when I would need to compare the results of the emulated version with a live hardware system (experience with tools for x86 emulation such as Bochs and QEMU shows that emulation often doesn't perfectly replicate the hardware, and conversely, the hardware often doesn't match either the standards or its own documentation). Still, that's some ways off, so I can certainly hold off there.

The point about using a better documented MIPS based system is an excellent one, especially given what you said about Onion's documentation. I should do more research into this before deciding on hardware; as already said, while I would like to get at it soon, it isn't pressing.

Thank you, you have answered my question and then some.

The question is pretty straightforward: is there a way to operate the Omega2/Omega2+ without the OpenWRT boot-up, either as a bare metal system, or loading some other OS?

Allow me to explain why I am wondering about this.

I am looking for a few different inexpensive hardware platforms of various types, for some experimental programming work; while most of the work can be done in emulation, I will soon need at least some live hardware to apply it to. While there are many options for ARM, the Omega2 is pretty much one of only three options for MIPS development which I have been able to find (the others being the Creator boards and the LinkIt 7688; I have reason to think that modifying a router would not be helpful, so I am focusing on maker-grade SBCs). I do not intend to work on IoT directly; my interest is solely in finding a platform for my software work. However, some of my goals would, if successful, have IoT applications.

For various reasons, I would prefer to target MIPS for the first iteration of the project.

My goal is to develop an experimental operating system, an assembly-language kernel called Alexia, after Alexia Massalin; the purpose of this first kernel, which is a separate project from the later design, is to test whether her Synthesis kernel model is viable with modern systems.

This would be in support for a successor project, to develop a model for applying her runtime code synthesis methods to higher-level languages.

One of the long-term goals for the later project is to developing a system by which partially compiled syntax trees could be used as a portable representation, as an alternative to bytecode representations such as JVM or .Net CLR; the program sections would be JIT compiled when the module is to be used on the specific system, in a way that tailors it to the specific hardware for maximum efficiency. Once compiled, the executable image would be cached for fast reuse.

While I am not currently in a graduate program, the intent is to use these projects for when I pursue a masters (and eventually, doctoral) degree. When completed, the source code would be released, but since the goal is a purely experimental system, I would not want to develop it further, and would be inclined to dissuade others from doing so, recommending instead that they apply any valid results to improving established systems such as Linux (where possible - I don't actually see the intended approaches fitting in with any of the existing OS designs, TBH).

As you can see, the Omega2 is not quite an ideal platform for me, but TBH, it is the best one I have found. Assuming, that is, that I can boot it into my custom OS.

Does anyone know if this is possible, or have any other suggestions for me to explore?