Support wanted/needed for alternative platforms? E.g. Haiku, what's needed?

Palli · January 4, 2019, 6:53pm

My “issue” was closed (I’m ok with that; and was ok with open just as a tracker/discussion on what’s needed) with:

github.com/JuliaLang/julia

Support alternative OSes, e.g. Haiku

opened 10:18AM - 04 Jan 19 UTC

closed 05:48PM - 04 Jan 19 UTC

PallHaraldsson

speculative build

I have one to three in mind: a) Haiku (is a BeOS clone, i.e. not Linux based)…. b) ReactOS (a clone of Windows NT) is another. c) RISC OS (probably not going to happen... nostalgia). Python did support. $ as directory separator may be a problem... and lots more. Would e.g. supporting a) be too difficult? What in general would be needed? I see as of OpenBLAS 0.3.3 (what we're using), Haiku support was added. We would need to add IsHaiku() etc. (IsBeOS() more appropriate?) and more dependencies would need to compile. Since these, i.e. Perl (so I assume PCRE2) work, it's a good sign: https://www.haiku-os.org/about/faq/#is-there-python-ruby-perl I looked into Libuv WIP: https://github.com/haikuports/haikuports/pull/1849/files [Since Keno is working on Julia without needing libuv (done?), that might also be an option, while you would I guess want support with.] For ReactOS, since it's a Windows clone, it should just work, without any changes (and IsReactOS() not needed/wanted?). However at some point it only had FAT (no NTFS) support. Maybe Julia on Windows requires NTFS? Maybe it's there now, while anyway they now have [Win]BTRFS support. It would be interesting to know of ReactOS (or even regular Windows) works, with or without it: https://github.com/maharmstone/btrfs

This is better suited for discourse. I don’t think this is the right place to bring up these platforms - since it is unlikely that Julia dependencies work

It just seemed to me Haiku support might be doable (with e.g. OpenBLAS adding support for it).

I’m not pushing for support for that or any OS (Solaris…); it would only make Julia slightly more portable. It’s mostly that other languages can claim better support, e.g. Haiku claims Perl, Python and Ruby. I don’t want users to overlook Julia because of lack of support…

To make this a little more, general, I know of Android/iOS and WebAssembly support status.

Tamas_Papp · January 4, 2019, 7:09pm

You opened another “will Julia run on…” topic recently where you did not participate in any of the subsequent discussion:

I wonder if this one is going anywhere. It was made pretty clear that running Julia on other hardware and OSs than currently supported would require a lot of ongoing work even when it is theoretically feasible. Are you seriously considering to provide this, or do you know someone who does?

Palli · January 6, 2019, 12:29am

I was seriously thinking of using Julia for a new kind of drone that’s in development in Iceland (but was asking for regular drones). And I know it likely could be done without any changes to Julia, was just curious if anyone had already did if for any kind of drone.

I’m sorry, I do ask such questions (that seems related to you) and no, I do not have any plans for Haiku, or to provide support for (the prototype drone uses Linux; and only hard-real-time OS on the microcontroller where Julia wouldn’t need to run; I think).

Thinking about it, there may not be much point to support [GUI] apps for Haiku (done in Julia), and WebAssembly (and/or JS) is going to support all platforms to fill that need.