AW: RE: SoftICE & Linux

NTDEV
1

Maybe you can get someone to finalize my PrivateICE debugger.
http:</http:> www.privatetools.de or
www.sourceforge.net/projects/pice http:
. It’s been there for years and it looks and feels like SoftICE.

Klaus Gerlicher
ATI/FireGL

-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Li Dong [mailto:xxxxx@i2r.a-star.edu.sg]
Gesendet: Friday, December 12, 2003 9:08 AM
An: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Betreff: [ntdev] RE: SoftICE & Linux

I will get used to KDB, it wont be a problem. Compare to SoftICE, KDB is too
shabby. I am just wondering if it is possible to write a softice-like
program for linux.

Thanks and regards
elton
----- Original Message -----
From: yatindra vaishnav mailto:xxxxx
To: Windows System mailto:xxxxx Software Devs Interest List

Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 2:40 PM
Subject: [ntdev] RE: SoftICE & Linux

Hi,
If one of our guy need some help we need to. If we cant we dont.

>From: “Arlie Davis”
>Reply-To: “Windows System Software Devs Interest List”
>To: “Windows System Software Devs Interest List”
>Subject: [ntdev] RE: SoftICE & Linux
>Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2003 23:33:52 -0500
>
>This isn’t just off-topic, this is anti topic.
>
>– arlie
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>[mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of Li Dong
>Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2003 11:33 PM
>To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
>Subject: [ntdev] SoftICE & Linux
>
>
>Hi everyone,
>
>I think I already got used to SoftICE for debugging in Windows.
>Recently, boss asked me to write some drivers for Linux. Gee! “printk()”
>is the only useful and beatiful thing that I can use.
>
>Why there is nobody write a debugging tool like SoftICE in linux system?
>Is it very hard to do or Is it impossible to do?
>
>Thanks and regards
>elton
>—
>Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
>http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>
>You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@sublinear.org
>To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>
>
>
>—
>Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>
>You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@hotmail.com
>To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com

_____

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To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com
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2

Well Bubba, maybe because the chief architect of Linux doesn’t believe in debuggers and contends that debuggers are not needed. At least that’s what I have heard discussed and bantered about.

–
Gary G. Little
Seagate Technologies, LLC
“Li Dong” wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
Hi everyone,

I think I already got used to SoftICE for debugging in Windows. Recently, boss asked me to write some drivers for Linux. Gee! “printk()” is the only useful and beatiful thing that I can use.

Why there is nobody write a debugging tool like SoftICE in linux system? Is it very hard to do or Is it impossible to do?

Thanks and regards
elton

3

I don’t think that Numega ask for Bill Gates opinion on the subject while
write Softice :slight_smile: It’s just not enough marker for this yet. But since Linux
market is growing we can expect that something commercial will pop up in
the future.Beside, there is kernel patches to allow debugging kernel with
gdb or any gdb front end.

Ilya.

At 07:46 AM 12/12/2003 -0600, you wrote:

Well Bubba, maybe because the chief architect of Linux doesn’t believe in
debuggers and contends that debuggers are not needed. At least that’s what
I have heard discussed and bantered about.

–
Gary G. Little
Seagate Technologies, LLC
“Li Dong” <mailto:xxxxxxxxxx@i2r.a-star.edu.sg>
>wrote in message news:xxxxxnews:xxxxx@ntdev…
>Hi everyone,
>
>I think I already got used to SoftICE for debugging in Windows. Recently,
>boss asked me to write some drivers for Linux. Gee! “printk()” is the only
>useful and beatiful thing that I can use.
>
>Why there is nobody write a debugging tool like SoftICE in linux system?
>Is it very hard to do or Is it impossible to do?
>
>Thanks and regards
>elton
>
>—
>Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
>http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>
>You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@jungo.com
>To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com</news:xxxxx></mailto:xxxxx>

4

Consider the earlier response from Klaus Gerlicher. He appears to have
written a linux debugger. But guess what? It ain’t a commercial product.
Hmmmm… Wonder why that is. Couldn’t be the linux open source culture.
Stallman and Torvaldis are just about the only open source devs making a
living off of giving software away. Anyhow my experience was the same as Mr.
Little: I ran away in horror from linux when I learned that debugging the
kernel was discouraged.

=====================
Mark Roddy

-----Original Message-----
From: Ilya Lifshits [mailto:xxxxx@jungo.com]
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 9:05 AM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: [ntdev] Re: SoftICE & Linux

I don’t think that Numega ask for Bill Gates opinion on the
subject while write Softice :slight_smile: It’s just not enough marker
for this yet. But since Linux market is growing we can
expect that something commercial will pop up in the
future.Beside, there is kernel patches to allow debugging
kernel with gdb or any gdb front end.

Ilya.

At 07:46 AM 12/12/2003 -0600, you wrote:
>Well Bubba, maybe because the chief architect of Linux
doesn’t believe
>in debuggers and contends that debuggers are not needed. At least
>that’s what I have heard discussed and bantered about.
>
>–
>Gary G. Little
>Seagate Technologies, LLC
>“Li Dong” <mailto:xxxxxxxxxx@i2r.a-star.edu.sg>
> >wrote in message news:xxxxxnews:xxxxx@ntdev…
> >Hi everyone,
> >
> >I think I already got used to SoftICE for debugging in Windows.
> >Recently, boss asked me to write some drivers for Linux. Gee!
> >“printk()” is the only useful and beatiful thing that I can use.
> >
> >Why there is nobody write a debugging tool like SoftICE in
> linux system?
> >Is it very hard to do or Is it impossible to do?
> >
> >Thanks and regards
> >elton
> >
> >—
> >Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
> >http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
> >
> >You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@jungo.com To
> >unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>
>
> —
> Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
> http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>
> You are currently subscribed to ntdev as:
> xxxxx@stratus.com To unsubscribe send a blank email to
> xxxxx@lists.osr.com
></news:xxxxx></mailto:xxxxx>

5

True, if it were accepted to use kernel debuggers in Linux dev. I’d have
probably already made a fortune out of my project. :slight_smile:

-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Roddy, Mark [mailto:xxxxx@stratus.com]
Gesendet: Freitag, 12. Dezember 2003 15:51
An: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Betreff: [ntdev] Re: SoftICE & Linux

Consider the earlier response from Klaus Gerlicher. He appears to have
written a linux debugger. But guess what? It ain’t a commercial product.
Hmmmm… Wonder why that is. Couldn’t be the linux open source culture.
Stallman and Torvaldis are just about the only open source devs making a
living off of giving software away. Anyhow my experience was the same as Mr.
Little: I ran away in horror from linux when I learned that debugging the
kernel was discouraged.

=====================
Mark Roddy

-----Original Message-----
From: Ilya Lifshits [mailto:xxxxx@jungo.com]
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 9:05 AM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: [ntdev] Re: SoftICE & Linux

I don’t think that Numega ask for Bill Gates opinion on the
subject while write Softice :slight_smile: It’s just not enough marker
for this yet. But since Linux market is growing we can
expect that something commercial will pop up in the
future.Beside, there is kernel patches to allow debugging
kernel with gdb or any gdb front end.

Ilya.

At 07:46 AM 12/12/2003 -0600, you wrote:
>Well Bubba, maybe because the chief architect of Linux
doesn’t believe
>in debuggers and contends that debuggers are not needed. At least
>that’s what I have heard discussed and bantered about.
>
>–
>Gary G. Little
>Seagate Technologies, LLC
>“Li Dong” <mailto:xxxxxxxxxx@i2r.a-star.edu.sg>
> >wrote in message news:xxxxxnews:xxxxx@ntdev…
> >Hi everyone,
> >
> >I think I already got used to SoftICE for debugging in Windows.
> >Recently, boss asked me to write some drivers for Linux. Gee!
> >“printk()” is the only useful and beatiful thing that I can use.
> >
> >Why there is nobody write a debugging tool like SoftICE in
> linux system?
> >Is it very hard to do or Is it impossible to do?
> >
> >Thanks and regards
> >elton
> >
> >—
> >Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
> >http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
> >
> >You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@jungo.com To
> >unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>
>
> —
> Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
> http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>
> You are currently subscribed to ntdev as:
> xxxxx@stratus.com To unsubscribe send a blank email to
> xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>

—
Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256

You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@ati.com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com</news:xxxxx></mailto:xxxxx>

6

I’ve seen people using the kernel patch to use the GDB, and these are for HW interfaces, otherwise they use printk() and KDB.

Not sure if RedHat has anything like RedBoot (monitor) for desktop linux ( but it is more comparable to windbg than softice). I use RedBoot for eCos hacking…

-prokash
----- Original Message -----
From: Li Dong
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 12:08 AM
Subject: [ntdev] RE: SoftICE & Linux

I will get used to KDB, it wont be a problem. Compare to SoftICE, KDB is too shabby. I am just wondering if it is possible to write a softice-like program for linux.

Thanks and regards
elton
----- Original Message -----
From: yatindra vaishnav
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 2:40 PM
Subject: [ntdev] RE: SoftICE & Linux

Hi,

If one of our guy need some help we need to. If we cant we dont.



>From: “Arlie Davis”
>Reply-To: “Windows System Software Devs Interest List”
>To: “Windows System Software Devs Interest List”
>Subject: [ntdev] RE: SoftICE & Linux
>Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2003 23:33:52 -0500
>
>This isn’t just off-topic, this is anti topic.
>
>– arlie
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>[mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of Li Dong
>Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2003 11:33 PM
>To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
>Subject: [ntdev] SoftICE & Linux
>
>
>Hi everyone,
>
>I think I already got used to SoftICE for debugging in Windows.
>Recently, boss asked me to write some drivers for Linux. Gee! “printk()”
>is the only useful and beatiful thing that I can use.
>
>Why there is nobody write a debugging tool like SoftICE in linux system?
>Is it very hard to do or Is it impossible to do?
>
>Thanks and regards
>elton
>—
>Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
>http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>
>You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@sublinear.org
>To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>
>
>
>—
>Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>
>You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@hotmail.com
>To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@i2r.a-star.edu.sg
To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com
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7

Not enough market? How can there be not enough market? Linux runs on
millions of machines. Debugging under UNIX/Linux has always been crap.
Maybe that’s why a lot of the code running in and on UNIX/Linux is crap.

– arlie

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
[mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of Ilya Lifshits
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 9:05 AM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: [ntdev] Re: SoftICE & Linux

I don’t think that Numega ask for Bill Gates opinion on the subject
while
write Softice :slight_smile: It’s just not enough marker for this yet. But since
Linux
market is growing we can expect that something commercial will pop up
in
the future.Beside, there is kernel patches to allow debugging kernel
with
gdb or any gdb front end.

Ilya.

At 07:46 AM 12/12/2003 -0600, you wrote:

Well Bubba, maybe because the chief architect of Linux doesn’t believe
in
debuggers and contends that debuggers are not needed. At least that’s
what
I have heard discussed and bantered about.

–
Gary G. Little
Seagate Technologies, LLC
“Li Dong” <mailto:xxxxxxxxxx@i2r.a-star.edu.sg>
>wrote in message news:xxxxxnews:xxxxx@ntdev…
>Hi everyone,
>
>I think I already got used to SoftICE for debugging in Windows.
>Recently,
>boss asked me to write some drivers for Linux. Gee! “printk()” is the
only
>useful and beatiful thing that I can use.
>
>Why there is nobody write a debugging tool like SoftICE in linux
>system?
>Is it very hard to do or Is it impossible to do?
>
>Thanks and regards
>elton
>
>—
>Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
>http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>
>You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@jungo.com
>To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com

—
Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256

You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@sublinear.org To
unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com</news:xxxxx></mailto:xxxxx>

8

Also, with each kernel panic (like bsod) the stack trace along with current
state of affairs (register, etc…) can be decoded from any standard linux
box using ksymoops.

What you don’t have is the ability to step through code with a plain vanilla
kernel. However, a kernel patch is available (as ilya states) to allow
gdb to connect up to the kernel.

Although, it may not be as slick as SoftICE (which is super slick) it was
more than sufficient for all the debugging that I had to do.

Regards,
Brad.
On Fri, Dec 12, 2003 at 04:04:35PM +0200, Ilya Lifshits wrote:

I don’t think that Numega ask for Bill Gates opinion on the subject while
write Softice :slight_smile: It’s just not enough marker for this yet. But since Linux
market is growing we can expect that something commercial will pop up in
the future.Beside, there is kernel patches to allow debugging kernel with
gdb or any gdb front end.

Ilya.

At 07:46 AM 12/12/2003 -0600, you wrote:
>Well Bubba, maybe because the chief architect of Linux doesn’t believe in
>debuggers and contends that debuggers are not needed. At least that’s what
>I have heard discussed and bantered about.
>
>–
>Gary G. Little
>Seagate Technologies, LLC
>“Li Dong” <mailto:xxxxxxxxxx@i2r.a-star.edu.sg>
> >wrote in message news:xxxxxnews:xxxxx@ntdev…
> >Hi everyone,
> >
> >I think I already got used to SoftICE for debugging in Windows. Recently,
> >boss asked me to write some drivers for Linux. Gee! “printk()” is the only
> >useful and beatiful thing that I can use.
> >
> >Why there is nobody write a debugging tool like SoftICE in linux system?
> >Is it very hard to do or Is it impossible to do?
> >
> >Thanks and regards
> >elton
> >
> >—
> >Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
> >http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
> >
> >You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@jungo.com
> >To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>
>
> —
> Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>
> You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@jedacite.dyndns.org
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com</news:xxxxx></mailto:xxxxx>

9

I wouldn’t neccessarily say that there is no money in giving software
away. Also, Open Source != Free as in Beer. Software companies that
sell hardware often give away software with their hardware. Other
times they will sell open source software to customers. Why? At
least with the embedded market the value seems to come from the fact
that it itegrated and tested. They could have downloaded and compiled
it for free, instead they chose to “buy” our pre-built, itegrated and
tested packages.

Also, I wouldn’t say taht “debugging the kernel was discouraged” I
had to routinely debug portions of the kernel. Maybe, I was going
against the norm, but I think the idea was to keep degugging code
out of the main tree, essentially the “free” build and put it into
a seperate kernel build. It is trivial to change the kernel you boot
from one that supports gdb debugging from one that doesn’t even in
embedded devices.

Of course, 90% of my experiences with Linux are embedded and I could
be totally off in terms of the desktop market.

Regards,
Brad.

On Fri, Dec 12, 2003 at 09:50:55AM -0500, Roddy, Mark wrote:

Consider the earlier response from Klaus Gerlicher. He appears to have
written a linux debugger. But guess what? It ain’t a commercial product.
Hmmmm… Wonder why that is. Couldn’t be the linux open source culture.
Stallman and Torvaldis are just about the only open source devs making a
living off of giving software away. Anyhow my experience was the same as Mr.
Little: I ran away in horror from linux when I learned that debugging the
kernel was discouraged.

=====================
Mark Roddy

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ilya Lifshits [mailto:xxxxx@jungo.com]
> Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 9:05 AM
> To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
> Subject: [ntdev] Re: SoftICE & Linux
>
>
> I don’t think that Numega ask for Bill Gates opinion on the
> subject while write Softice :slight_smile: It’s just not enough marker
> for this yet. But since Linux market is growing we can
> expect that something commercial will pop up in the
> future.Beside, there is kernel patches to allow debugging
> kernel with gdb or any gdb front end.
>
> Ilya.
>
> At 07:46 AM 12/12/2003 -0600, you wrote:
> >Well Bubba, maybe because the chief architect of Linux
> doesn’t believe
> >in debuggers and contends that debuggers are not needed. At least
> >that’s what I have heard discussed and bantered about.
> >
> >–
> >Gary G. Little
> >Seagate Technologies, LLC
> >“Li Dong” <mailto:xxxxxxxxxx@i2r.a-star.edu.sg>
> > >wrote in message news:xxxxxnews:xxxxx@ntdev…
> > >Hi everyone,
> > >
> > >I think I already got used to SoftICE for debugging in Windows.
> > >Recently, boss asked me to write some drivers for Linux. Gee!
> > >“printk()” is the only useful and beatiful thing that I can use.
> > >
> > >Why there is nobody write a debugging tool like SoftICE in
> > linux system?
> > >Is it very hard to do or Is it impossible to do?
> > >
> > >Thanks and regards
> > >elton
> > >
> > >—
> > >Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
> > >http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
> > >
> > >You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@jungo.com To
> > >unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com
> >
> >
> > —
> > Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
> > http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
> >
> > You are currently subscribed to ntdev as:
> > xxxxx@stratus.com To unsubscribe send a blank email to
> > xxxxx@lists.osr.com
> >
>
> —
> Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>
> You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@jedacite.dyndns.org
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com</news:xxxxx></mailto:xxxxx>

10

I tend to disagree. As a company you will buy a debugger but will you
as an end user. I think a lot of the problem is that a lot of driver
writers (at least for desktop linux) are not doing it as their day job
but more because they are interested in the project. Would you buy
SoftICE to use at home? Although I prefer SoftICE over windbg I’ll admit
that I’m a little cheap and would probably cheap out and just use windbg.

I think the same would happen with the linux desktop market. Although
there is no kernel debugging as nice or slick as SoftICE, if there was
how many people would switch from gdb to Linux SoftICE on their own
dime?

The embedded market I feel is quite different, there is a market for
people that aren’t using JTag debggers or even eCos (I think eCos is
what we used, kinda foggy if it was or not.) but then the debugger
will need to support all sorts of platforms like StrongARM, SH4, PPC.

Not to mention that I doubt a company could get much money considering
fast the embedded kernels change (and how fast the plain vanilla kernels
change on top of that)

Note: I’ve never written or worked on code for a kernel level debugger.
I would imagine that it would be very tightly coupled to the implementation
of the OS and would not be a trivial task. All of my opinions are based
on these beliefs.

Regards,
Brad.

On Fri, Dec 12, 2003 at 11:47:55AM -0500, Arlie Davis wrote:

Not enough market? How can there be not enough market? Linux runs on
millions of machines. Debugging under UNIX/Linux has always been crap.
Maybe that’s why a lot of the code running in and on UNIX/Linux is crap.

– arlie

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
[mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of Ilya Lifshits
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 9:05 AM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: [ntdev] Re: SoftICE & Linux

I don’t think that Numega ask for Bill Gates opinion on the subject
while
write Softice :slight_smile: It’s just not enough marker for this yet. But since
Linux
market is growing we can expect that something commercial will pop up
in
the future.Beside, there is kernel patches to allow debugging kernel
with
gdb or any gdb front end.

Ilya.

At 07:46 AM 12/12/2003 -0600, you wrote:
>Well Bubba, maybe because the chief architect of Linux doesn’t believe
>in
>debuggers and contends that debuggers are not needed. At least that’s
what
>I have heard discussed and bantered about.
>
>–
>Gary G. Little
>Seagate Technologies, LLC
>“Li Dong” <mailto:xxxxxxxxxx@i2r.a-star.edu.sg>
> >wrote in message news:xxxxxnews:xxxxx@ntdev…
> >Hi everyone,
> >
> >I think I already got used to SoftICE for debugging in Windows.
> >Recently,
> >boss asked me to write some drivers for Linux. Gee! “printk()” is the
> only
> >useful and beatiful thing that I can use.
> >
> >Why there is nobody write a debugging tool like SoftICE in linux
> >system?
> >Is it very hard to do or Is it impossible to do?
> >
> >Thanks and regards
> >elton
> >
> >—
> >Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
> >http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
> >
> >You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@jungo.com
> >To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>
>
> —
> Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
> http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>
> You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@sublinear.org To
> unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>
>
> —
> Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>
> You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@jedacite.dyndns.org
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com</news:xxxxx></mailto:xxxxx>

11

oh no… i see NTDEV’s next flame war coming…

i’m going to wait this one out. see you at the pub.

12

>

I wouldn’t necessarily say that there is no money in giving
software away. Also, Open Source != Free as in Beer.
Software companies that sell hardware often give away
software with their hardware.

I’d refer to that sort of company as a ‘hardware company’, and I am well
aware that there are hardware companies out there making lots of money
selling hardware and giving away open sores software.

Other times they will sell
open source software to customers. Why? At least with the
embedded market the value seems to come from the fact that it
integrated and tested. They could have downloaded and
compiled it for free, instead they chose to “buy” our
pre-built, integrated and tested packages.

The other model is the software support value add business, where companies
such as red hat etc make money by packaging up open sores into nice cosmetic
bundles and then supporting the mess when it doesn’t really work. There is
money there, however the dust on my red hat stock testifies to exactly how
overhyped that particular dot-went business model was.

Also, I wouldn’t say taht “debugging the kernel was
discouraged” I had to routinely debug portions of the kernel.
Maybe, I was going against the norm, but I think the idea
was to keep degugging code out of the main tree, essentially
the “free” build and put it into a seperate kernel build. It
is trivial to change the kernel you boot from one that
supports gdb debugging from one that doesn’t even in embedded devices.

Debugging the kernel is officially discouraged by God Himself. Google
torvaldis’s statements on this matter.

Of course, 90% of my experiences with Linux are embedded and
I could be totally off in terms of the desktop market.

No, other than the official discouragement part, I don’t think we are in
much of a disagreement here. I continue to maintain that there is little or
no commercial value in developing open sores software by itself. Thus you
can write a nifty softice clone for linux, but nobody will buy it 'cause
they all have the expectation that it is free. Any price is too high a price
point for this market :slight_smile: Instead you have to sell a widget-dongle-doodad
that requires your open sores effort, and then you sell the dongle and hope
that you can get enough money to cover the sores development costs.

=====================
Mark Roddy

13

Amen brother! Nice to see you employing my ‘open sore’ terminology. At
least I ‘think’ I coined it first. As in many things I could be mistaken.

Bill Casey

== SCSI Adapters & VirtualSCSI™ Target Mode Libs ==
Advanced Storage Concepts, Inc. (409) 744-2129
2720 Terminal Drive xxxxx@virtualscsi.com
Galveston, TX 77554 USA www.virtualscsi.com

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
[mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com]On Behalf Of Roddy, Mark
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 1:57 PM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: [ntdev] Re: SoftICE & Linux

>
> I wouldn’t necessarily say that there is no money in giving
> software away. Also, Open Source != Free as in Beer.
> Software companies that sell hardware often give away
> software with their hardware.

I’d refer to that sort of company as a ‘hardware company’, and I am well
aware that there are hardware companies out there making lots of money
selling hardware and giving away open sores software.

> Other times they will sell
> open source software to customers. Why? At least with the
> embedded market the value seems to come from the fact that it
> integrated and tested. They could have downloaded and
> compiled it for free, instead they chose to “buy” our
> pre-built, integrated and tested packages.

The other model is the software support value add business, where
companies
such as red hat etc make money by packaging up open sores into
nice cosmetic
bundles and then supporting the mess when it doesn’t really work. There is
money there, however the dust on my red hat stock testifies to
exactly how
overhyped that particular dot-went business model was.

>
> Also, I wouldn’t say taht “debugging the kernel was
> discouraged” I had to routinely debug portions of the kernel.
> Maybe, I was going against the norm, but I think the idea
> was to keep degugging code out of the main tree, essentially
> the “free” build and put it into a seperate kernel build. It
> is trivial to change the kernel you boot from one that
> supports gdb debugging from one that doesn’t even in embedded devices.
>

Debugging the kernel is officially discouraged by God Himself. Google
torvaldis’s statements on this matter.

> Of course, 90% of my experiences with Linux are embedded and
> I could be totally off in terms of the desktop market.
>

No, other than the official discouragement part, I don’t think we are in
much of a disagreement here. I continue to maintain that there is
little or
no commercial value in developing open sores software by itself. Thus you
can write a nifty softice clone for linux, but nobody will buy it 'cause
they all have the expectation that it is free. Any price is too
high a price
point for this market :slight_smile: Instead you have to sell a widget-dongle-doodad
that requires your open sores effort, and then you sell the
dongle and hope
that you can get enough money to cover the sores development costs.

=====================
Mark Roddy

Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256

You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@virtualscsi.com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com

14

Darn, I thought I invented the term. I wrote an article years ago for that
hideous NtInsider Rag that used the phrase. Perhaps the title was “Open
Source or Open Sores”, or at least that very phrase appears in it somewhere.

I also think I invented “Wimpy Beer” for the shit I drink that has no booze
in it and tastes sort of like really bad beer.

And I think I recently coined the term “NeoClown” to describe the rather
pathetically clumsy efforts of the arrogant gang of idiots in washington to
build an empire out of mesopotamian sand and oil shale.

From now on I’m going to patent every word I invent. Then I can retire and
develop open sores software and give it away and pretend I am nobler than
thou.

=====================
Mark Roddy

-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Casey [mailto:xxxxx@virtualscsi.com]
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 3:55 PM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: [ntdev] Re: SoftICE & Linux

Amen brother! Nice to see you employing my ‘open sore’
terminology. At least I ‘think’ I coined it first. As in
many things I could be mistaken.

Bill Casey

== SCSI Adapters & VirtualSCSI™ Target Mode Libs ==
Advanced Storage Concepts, Inc. (409) 744-2129
2720 Terminal Drive xxxxx@virtualscsi.com
Galveston, TX 77554 USA www.virtualscsi.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
> [mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com]On Behalf Of Roddy, Mark
> Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 1:57 PM
> To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
> Subject: [ntdev] Re: SoftICE & Linux
>
>
> >
> > I wouldn’t necessarily say that there is no money in
giving software
> > away. Also, Open Source != Free as in Beer.
> > Software companies that sell hardware often give away
software with
> > their hardware.
>
> I’d refer to that sort of company as a ‘hardware company’, and I am
> well aware that there are hardware companies out there
making lots of
> money selling hardware and giving away open sores software.
>
> > Other times they will sell
> > open source software to customers. Why? At least with
the embedded
> > market the value seems to come from the fact that it
integrated and
> > tested. They could have downloaded and compiled it for free,
> > instead they chose to “buy” our pre-built, integrated and tested
> > packages.
>
> The other model is the software support value add business, where
> companies such as red hat etc make money by packaging up open sores
> into nice cosmetic bundles and then supporting the mess when it
> doesn’t really work. There is money there, however the dust
on my red
> hat stock testifies to
> exactly how
> overhyped that particular dot-went business model was.
>
> >
> > Also, I wouldn’t say taht “debugging the kernel was
discouraged” I
> > had to routinely debug portions of the kernel.
> > Maybe, I was going against the norm, but I think the idea was to
> > keep degugging code out of the main tree, essentially the “free”
> > build and put it into a seperate kernel build. It is trivial to
> > change the kernel you boot from one that supports gdb
debugging from
> > one that doesn’t even in embedded devices.
> >
>
> Debugging the kernel is officially discouraged by God
Himself. Google
> torvaldis’s statements on this matter.
>
> > Of course, 90% of my experiences with Linux are embedded
and I could
> > be totally off in terms of the desktop market.
> >
>
> No, other than the official discouragement part, I don’t
think we are
> in much of a disagreement here. I continue to maintain that
there is
> little or no commercial value in developing open sores software by
> itself. Thus you can write a nifty softice clone for linux,
but nobody
> will buy it 'cause they all have the expectation that it is
free. Any
> price is too high a price point for this market :slight_smile: Instead
you have
> to sell a widget-dongle-doodad that requires your open
sores effort,
> and then you sell the dongle and hope that you can get
enough money to
> cover the sores development costs.
>
> =====================
> Mark Roddy
>
>
> —
> Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
> http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>
> You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@virtualscsi.com To
> unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>

Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256

You are currently subscribed to ntdev as:
xxxxx@stratus.com To unsubscribe send a blank email to
xxxxx@lists.osr.com

15

arlie,

You should see windowsxxxx (PNP, LDM, storage stack -
all this are so buggy and full of race conditions that
you can’t implement anything on top, always have to
reboot - is this an enterprise OS???)
and then talk about UNIX’es.

Radu.

— Arlie Davis wrote:
> Not enough market? How can there be not enough
> market? Linux runs on
> millions of machines. Debugging under UNIX/Linux
> has always been crap.
> Maybe that’s why a lot of the code running in and on
> UNIX/Linux is crap.
>
> – arlie
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
> [mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf
> Of Ilya Lifshits
> Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 9:05 AM
> To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
> Subject: [ntdev] Re: SoftICE & Linux
>
>
>
> I don’t think that Numega ask for Bill Gates opinion
> on the subject
> while
> write Softice :slight_smile: It’s just not enough marker for
> this yet. But since
> Linux
> market is growing we can expect that something
> commercial will pop up
> in
> the future.Beside, there is kernel patches to allow
> debugging kernel
> with
> gdb or any gdb front end.
>
> Ilya.
>
> At 07:46 AM 12/12/2003 -0600, you wrote:
> >Well Bubba, maybe because the chief architect of
> Linux doesn’t believe
> >in
> >debuggers and contends that debuggers are not
> needed. At least that’s
> what
> >I have heard discussed and bantered about.
> >
> >–
> >Gary G. Little
> >Seagate Technologies, LLC
> >“Li Dong”
>
<mailto:xxxxxxxxxx@i2r.a-star.edu.sg>
> >wrote in message
> news:xxxxxnews:xxxxx@ntdev…
> >Hi everyone,
> >
> >I think I already got used to SoftICE for debugging
> in Windows.
> >Recently,
> >boss asked me to write some drivers for Linux. Gee!
> “printk()” is the
> only
> >useful and beatiful thing that I can use.
> >
> >Why there is nobody write a debugging tool like
> SoftICE in linux
> >system?
> >Is it very hard to do or Is it impossible to do?
> >
> >Thanks and regards
> >elton
> >
> >—
> >Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
> >http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
> >
> >You are currently subscribed to ntdev as:
> xxxxx@jungo.com
> >To unsubscribe send a blank email to
> xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>
>
> —
> Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
> http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>
> You are currently subscribed to ntdev as:
> xxxxx@sublinear.org To
> unsubscribe send a blank email to
> xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>
>
> —
> Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
> http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>
> You are currently subscribed to ntdev as:
> xxxxx@yahoo.com
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to
xxxxx@lists.osr.com

__________________________________
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http://photos.yahoo.com/</news:xxxxx></mailto:xxxxx>

16

90% of everything is crap.

Not coincidentally, this thread seems to have accounted for about 90% of
the traffic on this list over the last few days…

Radu V wrote:

arlie,

You should see windowsxxxx (PNP, LDM, storage stack -
all this are so buggy and full of race conditions that
you can’t implement anything on top, always have to
reboot - is this an enterprise OS???)
and then talk about UNIX’es.

Radu.

— Arlie Davis wrote:
>
>>Not enough market? How can there be not enough
>>market? Linux runs on
>>millions of machines. Debugging under UNIX/Linux
>>has always been crap.
>>Maybe that’s why a lot of the code running in and on
>>UNIX/Linux is crap.
>>
>>– arlie
>>
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>>[mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf
>>Of Ilya Lifshits
>>Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 9:05 AM
>>To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
>>Subject: [ntdev] Re: SoftICE & Linux
>>
>>
>>
>>I don’t think that Numega ask for Bill Gates opinion
>>on the subject
>>while
>>write Softice :slight_smile: It’s just not enough marker for
>>this yet. But since
>>Linux
>>market is growing we can expect that something
>>commercial will pop up
>>in
>>the future.Beside, there is kernel patches to allow
>>debugging kernel
>>with
>>gdb or any gdb front end.
>>
>>Ilya.
>>
>>At 07:46 AM 12/12/2003 -0600, you wrote:
>>
>>>Well Bubba, maybe because the chief architect of
>>
>>Linux doesn’t believe
>>
>>>in
>>>debuggers and contends that debuggers are not
>>
>>needed. At least that’s
>>what
>>
>>>I have heard discussed and bantered about.
>>>
>>>–
>>>Gary G. Little
>>>Seagate Technologies, LLC
>>>“Li Dong”
>>
> <mailto:xxxxxxxxxx@i2r.a-star.edu.sg>
>
>>>wrote in message
>>
>>news:xxxxxnews:xxxxx@ntdev…
>>
>>>Hi everyone,
>>>
>>>I think I already got used to SoftICE for debugging
>>
>>in Windows.
>>
>>>Recently,
>>>boss asked me to write some drivers for Linux. Gee!
>>
>>“printk()” is the
>>only
>>
>>>useful and beatiful thing that I can use.
>>>
>>>Why there is nobody write a debugging tool like
>>
>>SoftICE in linux
>>
>>>system?
>>>Is it very hard to do or Is it impossible to do?
>>>
>>>Thanks and regards
>>>elton
>>>
>>>—
>>>Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
>>>http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>>>
>>>You are currently subscribed to ntdev as:
>>
>>xxxxx@jungo.com
>>
>>>To unsubscribe send a blank email to
>>
>>xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>>
>>
>>—
>>Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
>>http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>>
>>You are currently subscribed to ntdev as:
>>xxxxx@sublinear.org To
>>unsubscribe send a blank email to
>>xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>>
>>
>>—
>>Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
>>http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>>
>>You are currently subscribed to ntdev as:
>>xxxxx@yahoo.com
>>To unsubscribe send a blank email to
>
> xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> New Yahoo! Photos - easier uploading and sharing.
> http://photos.yahoo.com/
>
>

–
…/ray..</news:xxxxx></mailto:xxxxx>

17

Jesus christ, I’m not arguing about OPERATING SYSTEM QUALITY. I said
that UNIX/Linux DEBUGGERS have, IN MY EXPERIENCE, been CRAP.

EVERYTHING HAS BUGS. I’m not here to piss on Linux. I’ve done
professional development under NT AND Linux (& BSD & etc.) for years and
years – they all have varying levels of quality. EVERYTHING HAS BUGS
– and debuggers are an essential tool for finding and fixing them. IN
MY EXPERIENCE, I’ve never seen a good debugger for UNIX. gdb is crap.
YOUR experience, necessarily!, is different.

Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I’m sick of this shit! Someone ask a question about
developing NT device drivers, before I lose my fucking mind.

– arlie

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
[mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of Radu V
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 7:49 PM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: [ntdev] Re: SoftICE & Linux

arlie,

You should see windowsxxxx (PNP, LDM, storage stack -
all this are so buggy and full of race conditions that
you can’t implement anything on top, always have to
reboot - is this an enterprise OS???)
and then talk about UNIX’es.

Radu.

— Arlie Davis wrote:
> Not enough market? How can there be not enough
> market? Linux runs on
> millions of machines. Debugging under UNIX/Linux
> has always been crap.
> Maybe that’s why a lot of the code running in and on UNIX/Linux is
> crap.
>
> – arlie
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
> [mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of Ilya Lifshits
> Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 9:05 AM
> To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
> Subject: [ntdev] Re: SoftICE & Linux
>
>
>
> I don’t think that Numega ask for Bill Gates opinion
> on the subject
> while
> write Softice :slight_smile: It’s just not enough marker for
> this yet. But since
> Linux
> market is growing we can expect that something
> commercial will pop up
> in
> the future.Beside, there is kernel patches to allow
> debugging kernel
> with
> gdb or any gdb front end.
>
> Ilya.
>
> At 07:46 AM 12/12/2003 -0600, you wrote:
> >Well Bubba, maybe because the chief architect of
> Linux doesn’t believe
> >in
> >debuggers and contends that debuggers are not
> needed. At least that’s
> what
> >I have heard discussed and bantered about.
> >
> >–
> >Gary G. Little
> >Seagate Technologies, LLC
> >“Li Dong”
>
<mailto:xxxxxxxxxx@i2r.a-star.edu.sg>
> >wrote in message
> news:xxxxxnews:xxxxx@ntdev…
> >Hi everyone,
> >
> >I think I already got used to SoftICE for debugging
> in Windows.
> >Recently,
> >boss asked me to write some drivers for Linux. Gee!
> “printk()” is the
> only
> >useful and beatiful thing that I can use.
> >
> >Why there is nobody write a debugging tool like
> SoftICE in linux
> >system?
> >Is it very hard to do or Is it impossible to do?
> >
> >Thanks and regards
> >elton
> >
> >—
> >Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
> >http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
> >
> >You are currently subscribed to ntdev as:
> xxxxx@jungo.com
> >To unsubscribe send a blank email to
> xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>
>
> —
> Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
> http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>
> You are currently subscribed to ntdev as:
> xxxxx@sublinear.org To
> unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>
>
> —
> Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
> http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>
> You are currently subscribed to ntdev as:
> xxxxx@yahoo.com
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to
xxxxx@lists.osr.com

__________________________________
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New Yahoo! Photos - easier uploading and sharing.
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—
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http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256

You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@sublinear.org To
unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com</news:xxxxx></mailto:xxxxx>

18

i have a driver question.
im working on making a command line interface for windows like
unix and linux have. as you know those operating systems boot in
to character mode. windows NT as ive been able to get it has some
sort of character mode at boot up. is it possible to continue
this character mode into some custom-written usermode component.

basically what i am trying to get at, is it possible to load win32
and stuff, yet be able to ‘alt+tab’ or something out of the GUI
win32 mode and into a character mode display that would be either
the standard cmd.exe or a custom written, native-mode component.

if anyone has any ideas on this totally far-fetch pipe-dream ( :stuck_out_tongue: )
of making windows, well, not ‘windows-ish’ id appreciate it.
thanks for your time gentlemen

asa

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
[mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com]On Behalf Of Arlie Davis
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 8:29 PM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: [ntdev] Re: SoftICE & Linux

Jesus christ, I’m not arguing about OPERATING SYSTEM QUALITY. I said
that UNIX/Linux DEBUGGERS have, IN MY EXPERIENCE, been CRAP.

EVERYTHING HAS BUGS. I’m not here to piss on Linux. I’ve done
professional development under NT AND Linux (& BSD & etc.) for years and
years – they all have varying levels of quality. EVERYTHING HAS BUGS
– and debuggers are an essential tool for finding and fixing them. IN
MY EXPERIENCE, I’ve never seen a good debugger for UNIX. gdb is crap.
YOUR experience, necessarily!, is different.

Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I’m sick of this shit! Someone ask a question about
developing NT device drivers, before I lose my fucking mind.

– arlie

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
[mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of Radu V
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 7:49 PM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: [ntdev] Re: SoftICE & Linux

arlie,

You should see windowsxxxx (PNP, LDM, storage stack -
all this are so buggy and full of race conditions that
you can’t implement anything on top, always have to
reboot - is this an enterprise OS???)
and then talk about UNIX’es.

Radu.

— Arlie Davis wrote:
> Not enough market? How can there be not enough
> market? Linux runs on
> millions of machines. Debugging under UNIX/Linux
> has always been crap.
> Maybe that’s why a lot of the code running in and on UNIX/Linux is
> crap.
>
> – arlie
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
> [mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of Ilya Lifshits
> Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 9:05 AM
> To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
> Subject: [ntdev] Re: SoftICE & Linux
>
>
>
> I don’t think that Numega ask for Bill Gates opinion
> on the subject
> while
> write Softice :slight_smile: It’s just not enough marker for
> this yet. But since
> Linux
> market is growing we can expect that something
> commercial will pop up
> in
> the future.Beside, there is kernel patches to allow
> debugging kernel
> with
> gdb or any gdb front end.
>
> Ilya.
>
> At 07:46 AM 12/12/2003 -0600, you wrote:
> >Well Bubba, maybe because the chief architect of
> Linux doesn’t believe
> >in
> >debuggers and contends that debuggers are not
> needed. At least that’s
> what
> >I have heard discussed and bantered about.
> >
> >–
> >Gary G. Little
> >Seagate Technologies, LLC
> >“Li Dong”
>
<mailto:xxxxxxxxxx@i2r.a-star.edu.sg>
> >wrote in message
> news:xxxxxnews:xxxxx@ntdev…
> >Hi everyone,
> >
> >I think I already got used to SoftICE for debugging
> in Windows.
> >Recently,
> >boss asked me to write some drivers for Linux. Gee!
> “printk()” is the
> only
> >useful and beatiful thing that I can use.
> >
> >Why there is nobody write a debugging tool like
> SoftICE in linux
> >system?
> >Is it very hard to do or Is it impossible to do?
> >
> >Thanks and regards
> >elton
> >
> >—
> >Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
> >http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
> >
> >You are currently subscribed to ntdev as:
> xxxxx@jungo.com
> >To unsubscribe send a blank email to
> xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>
>
> —
> Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
> http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>
> You are currently subscribed to ntdev as:
> xxxxx@sublinear.org To
> unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>
>
> —
> Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
> http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>
> You are currently subscribed to ntdev as:
> xxxxx@yahoo.com
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to
xxxxx@lists.osr.com

__________________________________
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New Yahoo! Photos - easier uploading and sharing.
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—
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You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@sublinear.org To
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19

Unfortunately, this is totally impossible right now. NT and Win32 are
fairly married. Unlike UNIX/Linux, a lot of essential functions in NT
are dependent on the Win32 subsystem.

As I understand it, there is actually some on-going work to make some
future version of Windows server work headlessly, and work well
headlessly. But until then, NT would require a fair amount of
modification in order to do what you want. The minimal text-mode boot
OS of the kernel is only supported for installations and the emergency
recovery console, and nothing else, right now.

There are some reasons to want to do this, for minimal server installs,
etc. However, do you have any specific scenario you want to achieve?
Or is this just a “I-wish-it-worked-that-way” sort of question? (I’ve
wished it worked that way, at times, too.)

– arlie

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
[mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of Asa Yeamans
Sent: Saturday, December 13, 2003 1:19 AM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: [ntdev] Re: SoftICE & Linux

i have a driver question.
im working on making a command line interface for windows like unix and
linux have. as you know those operating systems boot in to character
mode. windows NT as ive been able to get it has some sort of character
mode at boot up. is it possible to continue this character mode into
some custom-written usermode component.

basically what i am trying to get at, is it possible to load win32 and
stuff, yet be able to ‘alt+tab’ or something out of the GUI
win32 mode and into a character mode display that would be either the
standard cmd.exe or a custom written, native-mode component.

if anyone has any ideas on this totally far-fetch pipe-dream ( :stuck_out_tongue: ) of
making windows, well, not ‘windows-ish’ id appreciate it. thanks for
your time gentlemen

asa

20

Couldn’t this just be done outside of the driver?

You could just have an application running full-screen that is
running your own app. If you want it to look like a *nix then
using Cygwin would probably be your best bet (www.cygwin.org)
which is basically a bunch of Windows Utils to make it look
like *nix.

Unless of course you’re wanting to have basically Windows boot
up into a text mode and be able to start the Windows GUI similar
to startX. In that sense I have no clue at all.

Either way, I think Cygwin would be good to look at especially
if you want to mimic a *nix.

Regards,
Brad.

On Sat, Dec 13, 2003 at 12:19:00AM -0600, Asa Yeamans wrote:

i have a driver question.
im working on making a command line interface for windows like
unix and linux have. as you know those operating systems boot in
to character mode. windows NT as ive been able to get it has some
sort of character mode at boot up. is it possible to continue
this character mode into some custom-written usermode component.

basically what i am trying to get at, is it possible to load win32
and stuff, yet be able to ‘alt+tab’ or something out of the GUI
win32 mode and into a character mode display that would be either
the standard cmd.exe or a custom written, native-mode component.

if anyone has any ideas on this totally far-fetch pipe-dream ( :stuck_out_tongue: )
of making windows, well, not ‘windows-ish’ id appreciate it.
thanks for your time gentlemen

asa

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
[mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com]On Behalf Of Arlie Davis
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 8:29 PM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: [ntdev] Re: SoftICE & Linux

Jesus christ, I’m not arguing about OPERATING SYSTEM QUALITY. I said
that UNIX/Linux DEBUGGERS have, IN MY EXPERIENCE, been CRAP.

EVERYTHING HAS BUGS. I’m not here to piss on Linux. I’ve done
professional development under NT AND Linux (& BSD & etc.) for years and
years – they all have varying levels of quality. EVERYTHING HAS BUGS
– and debuggers are an essential tool for finding and fixing them. IN
MY EXPERIENCE, I’ve never seen a good debugger for UNIX. gdb is crap.
YOUR experience, necessarily!, is different.

Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I’m sick of this shit! Someone ask a question about
developing NT device drivers, before I lose my fucking mind.

– arlie

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
[mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of Radu V
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 7:49 PM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: [ntdev] Re: SoftICE & Linux

arlie,

You should see windowsxxxx (PNP, LDM, storage stack -
all this are so buggy and full of race conditions that
you can’t implement anything on top, always have to
reboot - is this an enterprise OS???)
and then talk about UNIX’es.

Radu.

— Arlie Davis wrote:
> > Not enough market? How can there be not enough
> > market? Linux runs on
> > millions of machines. Debugging under UNIX/Linux
> > has always been crap.
> > Maybe that’s why a lot of the code running in and on UNIX/Linux is
> > crap.
> >
> > – arlie
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
> > [mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of Ilya Lifshits
> > Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 9:05 AM
> > To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
> > Subject: [ntdev] Re: SoftICE & Linux
> >
> >
> >
> > I don’t think that Numega ask for Bill Gates opinion
> > on the subject
> > while
> > write Softice :slight_smile: It’s just not enough marker for
> > this yet. But since
> > Linux
> > market is growing we can expect that something
> > commercial will pop up
> > in
> > the future.Beside, there is kernel patches to allow
> > debugging kernel
> > with
> > gdb or any gdb front end.
> >
> > Ilya.
> >
> > At 07:46 AM 12/12/2003 -0600, you wrote:
> > >Well Bubba, maybe because the chief architect of
> > Linux doesn’t believe
> > >in
> > >debuggers and contends that debuggers are not
> > needed. At least that’s
> > what
> > >I have heard discussed and bantered about.
> > >
> > >–
> > >Gary G. Little
> > >Seagate Technologies, LLC
> > >“Li Dong”
> >
> <mailto:xxxxxxxxxx@i2r.a-star.edu.sg>
> > >wrote in message
> > news:xxxxxnews:xxxxx@ntdev…
> > >Hi everyone,
> > >
> > >I think I already got used to SoftICE for debugging
> > in Windows.
> > >Recently,
> > >boss asked me to write some drivers for Linux. Gee!
> > “printk()” is the
> > only
> > >useful and beatiful thing that I can use.
> > >
> > >Why there is nobody write a debugging tool like
> > SoftICE in linux
> > >system?
> > >Is it very hard to do or Is it impossible to do?
> > >
> > >Thanks and regards
> > >elton
> > >
> > >—
> > >Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
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