Perl/Linux, a Linux distribution where all programs are written in Perl

http://perllinux.sourceforge.net/

by colinprince • 14 years ago

134 89 14 years ago

perllinux.sourceforge.net

In all seriousness, what year is this thing from? I honestly can't tell if this was someone's idea of a joke in 2000, or if this is someone's idea of a joke in 2012. Both seem equally plausible!

mediocregopher2• 14 years ago

> Registered: 2001-03-12 > Last Update: 2009-07-17

So... a little of both it seems.

aaronbrethorst3• 14 years ago

Thanks for the info. Also, just out of curiosity, are you a U of MN student or alum?

dokem• 14 years ago

The download says it was zipped in 2005.

zbowling• 14 years ago

I remember reading about this hack in 2003 wondering if there was any other variations of Linux than just "GNU/Linux". I always hated the term "GNU/Linux" and was looking for an excuse to generalize the name to just "Linux" and win a silly argument with some Stallman following, freedom loving zealots (system admins) at work.

These days Android (being almost 100% GNU free) is a decent argument against the GNU/Linux name for me (although busybox/uClibc stacks on most routers are pretty close as well).

srl• 14 years ago

Android is not GNU/Linux. Most desktop and server installations are. "GNU/Linux" is not another name for linux - it's the name of "GNU/Linux".

For the record, I find the name a little silly myself (despite being, as you put it, a Stallman-following freedom-loving zealot). But the fact that linux can be used without GNU is not an argument against naming systems where it is used with GNU, GNU/Linux.

chii• 14 years ago

i think RMS just picked the wrong name - GNU is difficult to pronounce. Linux is easy - it rolls off the tongue.

If RMS picked something a bit catchier, it'd have taken more mindshare.

jlgreco3• 14 years ago

To me, it seems like that just strengthens the argument for using the term GNU/Linux. When GNU was the only userland in town there wasn't much point, but now the extra descriptive power of it is useful.

pjmlp4• 14 years ago

Android is at most, Android/Linux.

Linux is just a plain kernel, Stallman is right to refer to Linux based distributions as GNU/Linux, since it is the Linux kernel with GNU tools userland.

notatoad• 14 years ago

He's right, and at the same time wrong. Yes, GNU/Linux includes the GNU tools, but if we start naming the component systems where do we stop? Should i tell people i use Gnome/X.org/GNU/Linux? What makes GNU so special that it deserves to be included in the name?

Linux is a nice simple, catchy name that i can use to communicate something to somebody. Putting GNU in front when i say linux does not change what i'm saying.

mhd4• 14 years ago

There was also "Mastodon Linux"[1], an attempt to both get rid of most of the GNU userland as well as stick to the a.out format (for binary compatibility and glibc-sucks reasons). Always thought it was kinda interesting, but pretty dead due to basically being a one-man project (by David Parsons, nowadays mostly known as the author of the discount markdown parser).

[1] http://www.mastodon.biz/

ricardosallmanu• 14 years ago

Ι'd јuѕt lіkе tο іntеrјесt fοr а mοmеnt. Wһаt уοu'rе rеfеrrіng tο аѕ Lіnux, іѕ іn fасt, GΝU/Lіnux, οr аѕ Ι'vе rесеntlу tаkеn tο саllіng іt, GΝU рluѕ Lіnux. Lіnux іѕ nοt аn οреrаtіng ѕуѕtеm untο іtѕеlf, but rаtһеr аnοtһеr frее сοmрοnеnt οf а fullу funсtіοnіng GΝU ѕуѕtеm mаdе uѕеful bу tһе GΝU сοrеlіbѕ, ѕһеll utіlіtіеѕ аnd vіtаl ѕуѕtеm сοmрοnеntѕ сοmрrіѕіng а full OS аѕ dеfіnеd bу ΡOSΙX.

Mаnу сοmрutеr uѕеrѕ run а mοdіfіеd vеrѕіοn οf tһе GΝU ѕуѕtеm еvеrу dау, wіtһοut rеаlіzіng іt. Τһrοugһ а ресulіаr turn οf еvеntѕ, tһе vеrѕіοn οf GΝU wһісһ іѕ wіdеlу uѕеd tοdау іѕ οftеn саllеd "Lіnux", аnd mаnу οf іtѕ uѕеrѕ аrе nοt аwаrе tһаt іt іѕ bаѕісаllу tһе GΝU ѕуѕtеm, dеvеlοреd bу tһе GΝU Ρrοјесt.

Τһеrе rеаllу іѕ а Lіnux, аnd tһеѕе реοрlе аrе uѕіng іt, but іt іѕ јuѕt а раrt οf tһе ѕуѕtеm tһеу uѕе. Lіnux іѕ tһе kеrnеl: tһе рrοgrаm іn tһе ѕуѕtеm tһаt аllοсаtеѕ tһе mасһіnе'ѕ rеѕοurсеѕ tο tһе οtһеr рrοgrаmѕ tһаt уοu run. Τһе kеrnеl іѕ аn еѕѕеntіаl раrt οf аn οреrаtіng ѕуѕtеm, but uѕеlеѕѕ bу іtѕеlf; іt саn οnlу funсtіοn іn tһе сοntеxt οf а сοmрlеtе οреrаtіng ѕуѕtеm. Lіnux іѕ nοrmаllу uѕеd іn сοmbіnаtіοn wіtһ tһе GΝU οреrаtіng ѕуѕtеm: tһе wһοlе ѕуѕtеm іѕ bаѕісаllу GΝU wіtһ Lіnux аddеd, οr GΝU/Lіnux. All tһе ѕο-саllеd "Lіnux" dіѕtrіbutіοnѕ аrе rеаllу dіѕtrіbutіοnѕ οf GΝU/Lіnux.

lucian1900• 14 years ago

What's wrong with all your letters "h"?

klez• 14 years ago

For those who don't know, this post is becoming a sort of meme on /r/linux . And while I'm all for giving credit where it's due (by calling the OS GNU/Linux), I think, as I said on Reddit, that this copy/paste job devalues the discussion, since it gets tossed anywhere the system is called just Linux, gets downvoted as off-topic and nobody reads it anymore. So it's, IMHO, pointless and counter-effective.

Since I noticed people tend to be a little less emotional here then on Reddit, does anybody have any opinion on this?

derekp7• 14 years ago

My main concerns with this message are: 1) Although GNU was conceived as a full operating system, without a kernel it became (in practice) the GNU Toolkit -- a collection of replacement command line tools that you could install on any Unix (style) system, in order to improve / standardize them (made the interoperability among AIX, Solaris, HP/UX, Digital/True64, etc more tolerable). Now I know this wasn't the intention, but that was mostly the reality of that time (early 90's, late 80's).

2) Although Linux is the name of a kernel, it also became a banner for a different style of free software (free vs. open source, the two have different philosophies). The Linux style seems to be OK with free and non-free software co-existing. So calling a distribution GNU/Linux sounds like the entire distribution is in line with the FSF goals. I'd rather leave the GNU title only to distributions that are 100% Free (GNU style free).

3) Back to point 1, a lot of people were brought together due to the different style (Cathedral vs. Bazaar) of Linux (the movement, not the kernel). So Linux should get recognition for more than "just a kernel".

mochizuki• 14 years ago

I wish they'd make a serious attempt to do this in python, it'd be do fun to hack up all my programs without having to know C, C++, and every other programming language under the sun. Then again maybe I'm just lazy

jlgreco3• 14 years ago

With rather few exceptions, you only need to learn C if hacking on your userland is your idea of fun. Check out Busybox for a particularly easy one to start hacking.

gvalkov• 14 years ago

Well, there is PyCoreutils [1] for the userspace and supervisord [2] for pid 1. This is certainly an interesting idea - too bad the world isn't in dire need for more distributions.

[1] https://launchpad.net/pycoreutils

[2] http://supervisord.org/

mariuz• 14 years ago

It's nice to study the code and i used some of it for chroot type applications , it's easy to let users play in a restricted environment with perl inside and a few linux utils

pjmlp4• 14 years ago

This reminds me of Aurorax, an attempt to have a Solaris distribution with the userland software written in Ada.

Sadly the project seems to no longer be alive.

mulander• 14 years ago

Yes, AuroraUX is generally dead but on the bright sight it initiated[1] the development of GNAT-AUX[2] which is fine up to this day and even compiles Ada for Android devices :)

[1] http://www.dragonlace.net/questions/quest_003/

[2] http://www.dragonlace.net/

pjmlp4• 14 years ago

Thanks for the tip, cool information!

shell0x• 14 years ago

Interesting idea. I guess the guys who wrote it, learned a lot on this way :)

zokier5• 14 years ago

This reminds me of the sad fact that most distributions are just repackaging the same old GNU tools, or if embedded then busybox. Where's the innovation/experimentation of base userland? Android (other mobile linuxes probably too) is a nice exception, even though I'm not particularly fond of it as a system, I approve that at least it's trying to be different.

1337p3372• 14 years ago

Well, there's BSD, Plan 9, Inferno. If you don't want the "same old GNU tools", there are plenty of places to go.

zokier5• 14 years ago

I guess I should have specified Linux distributions, but then I thought that would be obvious from the context.

Besides latest stable of Plan9 was 10 years ago and latest stable of Inferno was 5 years ago...

nodata• 14 years ago

How's that a sad fact? Non-GNU tools are horrible. Want sort -h? Want find -mmin? etc. etc.

zokier5• 14 years ago

Maybe if alternative tools were more actively developed then they wouldn't be so horrible. Not having competition causes stagnation, which is the sad part.

mhd4• 14 years ago

Erm, GNU is doing the "innovation" here, i.e. adding spurious new flags and options. Which got quite annoying back in the days when I had to work with other commercial Unices and still hits me from time to time on BSDs (including OS X).

Anyone still remember /usr/ucb/bin?

mhd4• 14 years ago

A user-editable userland is a pretty neat idea, and if your language of choice is Perl, why not? Plan 9 has the pretty neat 'src' command that immediately opens the source file (or main entry point) of a given command.

Given something like file system overlays, individual users forking their own command versions would be a pretty neat idea, albeit it might turn out to be a bit chaotic. Although not much more than e.g. a highly-customized shell or emacs environment.

justincormack• 14 years ago

I have been working on [1] a Lua library that can implement all the functionality to do what is needed to bring up a Linux userspace. I should have a very minimal bootable environment very soon, as I have enough of the network tools, mount and so on implemented to put it together. There is not really intended to be a shell and command line tools though, it is just a library but you could have a REPL console. I am more interested in easily creating small system images to run single applications in, see [2] for rationale, building small testable whole system images that are quick to rebuild. Planning to use Musl libc [3] which is small and easy to debug so you can easily follow what is going on, plus the whole userspace will be BSD licensed.

[1] https://github.com/justincormack/ljsyscall [2] http://www.myriabit.com/ljsyscall/ [3] http://www.etalabs.net/musl/

primitur3• 14 years ago

Neat ideas, I hope you continue to make good progress! I'm reminded of LuaOS, of course: http://luaos.net/

As an 8-bit nerd I'd love to return to the days when there was, basically, just one language onboard the computer, and all vendors just used it. :) LuaOS is a cute way to achieve this, as is your efforts too, if I understand you properly.

Of course such an idea is not so foreign in the embedded sphere, where there are plenty of appliances whose LCD interface are little more than a PUTS/GETS in some shell script, but there is some merit to the idea that the ethos of a single-system-language-onboard as an Open Source target may well be worth a serious effort. I'd love to have a new Tablet paradigm where the entire thing is LuaOS and such things as MOAI are easily onboard as well .. it could represent a brave new effort against the Walled Garden Wars we're seeing ..

derleth• 14 years ago

> As an 8-bit nerd I'd love to return to the days when there was, basically, just one language onboard the computer, and all vendors just used it. :)

Oh, like a Lisp machine. ;)

(Be careful what you wish for, though; the 'one language to rule them all' world was essentially why ADVENT was written in FORTRAN of all languages.)

(Also: Was it ever just one language? Eight-bit systems always had BASIC and assembly language; for a lot of tasks, assembly language was pretty much it, unless you bought a Pascal compiler or something. Lisp machines had Lisp written in the normal way, Lisp written in an obscure way to improve performance, and microcode. Even old AS/400 systems had COBOL and RPG, which is rather a pick-your-poison dilemma but the choice was there.)

raverbashing• 14 years ago

Like busybox on Lua? Sounds interesting

mhd4• 14 years ago

A Rosetta Code-like site featuring Unix utilities for language comparison / code golfing would be a pretty neat idea. Use the V7 man pages as specs, so you don't go overboard.

buntar• 14 years ago

I could use a lightweigt and fast perl version of SED. There are incompatibilities between sed versions, especially between linux and mac. Therefor a small sed utility that you can ship with every release would be useful.

zokier5• 14 years ago

perl -p -e?

peterwwillis• 14 years ago

add -i to edit a file in place

     $ perl -p -i -e 's/\r\n/\n/' file1 file2 file3

flyinRyan• 14 years ago

Hosted on sourceforge to complete the "remembering years gone by" full house.

phete• 14 years ago

what? no javascript?

sp3323• 14 years ago

That's over here http://bellard.org/jslinux/tech.html (runnable http://bellard.org/jslinux/)

itmag• 14 years ago

This made me think of something: it's my subjective experience that there is a relative dearth of Perl articles/discussion posted on HN. Is this correct? And if so, why is that the case? Hackers don't use Perl anymore? :)

Is anyone here using Perl in a significant way for their startup?

berntb• 14 years ago

Perl discussions historically tended to be trolled mercilessly on HN, seemingly from adherents of certain competing language environments, so I assume people don't like to post discussions of Perl here.

danweber2• 14 years ago

Anything I would use Perl for, I use Ruby instead.

draegtun• 14 years ago

re: Perl posts on HN - There's actually quite a lot of Perl articles posted here (and I maybe the main culprit of that!). However only a small subset percolate to front page.

re: startups - Ones that quickly come to mind... Lokku, Blekko, Moonfruit, DuckDuckGo, CareerJet & Adzuna.

chromatic• 14 years ago

Is anyone here using Perl in a significant way for their startup?

Onyx Neon ( http://onyxneon.com/ ) isn't a startup, but the main part of our publishing pipeline is Perl. (Half of it is on CPAN, and the rest will soon be there.)

Of my other business ventures, two are entirely Perl on the server side and the other uses Perl substantially.

colomon2• 14 years ago

My tiny company's been around for 13 years now, so it doesn't qualify as a startup. My Perl 5 scripts are very important to my business, and I've even got a couple of Perl 6 scripts helping out these days.

danweber2• 14 years ago

No one has asked yet, so I guess I have to: is the Perl binary written in Perl?

gpvos• 14 years ago

No. The article says:

> The only compiled code in this Perl/Linux system is: Linux Kernel (not currently built with this project), perl, and uClibc.

The Perl 5 compilers that currently exist all produce code that still needs to be linked to the perl library, which itself is written in C, not Perl. (I don't know the current situation for Perl 6).

colomon2• 14 years ago

Rakudo Perl 6 runs on Parrot, which is written in C. Niecza Perl 6 runs on .NET/mono, and its libraries are a mix of Perl 6 and C# code.

motiejus• 14 years ago

I can't see /bin/sh, and I haven't heard of posix shell implementation in Perl. Am I missing something?

luckydude• 14 years ago

This is a hoot! I semi-seriously proposed that we do this at Sun back in the SunOS 4.x days.

Got shot down, of course, as it should have been back then, the CPUs were just not fast enough. Even today, C beats perl pretty handily.

Even so, I think this is pretty cute. Anyone know why it was done? Just because? Or was there a reason.

Perl/Linux, a Linux distribution where all programs are written in Perl

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