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linkdd | 5 months ago

> It's even possible to run BEAM on bare metal, (almost?) entirely in place of the normal OS.

How? With a unikernel?

discuss

thomasfortes|5 months ago

Using GRiSP Metal, not exactly without an OS, but using a real time OS designed for embedded devices.

https://www.grisp.org/software

andrewflnr|5 months ago

It's been a while, but I believe so. I think I'm remembering the "Erlang on Xen" project, which seems to be defunct now.

signa11|5 months ago

i would think so, no other option afaik.

toast0|5 months ago

I've built a hobby OS around BEAM... BEAM doesn't require a whole lot from the OS, I built a minimal kernel that runs a single process, which you could consider a unikernel or at least very close. I had originally wanted BEAM in ring 0, but I had a lot of trouble getting started. This way, I can just use a pre-compiled BEAM for FreeBSD and don't have to fight with weird compilation options. Anyway, with x86-32 at least, I can give my Ring 3 process access to all the ioports and let it request a mmap of any address, so the only drivers I need in the kernel are IRQ controllers, timers, and pre-beam console. Once beam is up, console i/o and networking is managed from erlang code (with a couple nifs)