[Haskell-cafe] Linux device drivers

[Donald Bruce Stewart]

dons:
> alex:
> > Wow!  Did you also implement tcp in Haskell?

On this topic, the following House code looks relevant:
    http://cvs.haskell.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/programatica/hOp/kernel/Net/

There's something satsifying about seeing 'instance Functor Packet' in
IPv4.hs ;)

> > Does hOp or House also have the ability to write to disk?
> > 
> > (With HAppS, I've gotten rid of the AMP part of LAMP, it would be 
> > really cool to get rid of the L as well!)
> 
> Sorry! By "We've got a few drivers written in Haskell", I meant
> "the Haskell community", not me personally :} You have the hOp and House
> developers to thank for this stuff.
> 
> > On Mon, 21 Mar 2005, Donald Bruce Stewart wrote:
> > 
> > >mark:
> > >>I was wondering about the possibility of using Haskell for developing
> > >>device drivers that would be kernel modules for Linux. If nothing else,
> > >>it would be quite an educational experience for me, as I've not yet
> > >>experimented with either the Linux kernel or Haskell FFI, nor have I
> > >>had to learn how to squeeze much performance out of my Haskell code.
> > >>
> > >>Clearly, this application demands special things from the compiler and
> > >>the runtime. But, I'm not exactly sure what, nor how to achieve such
> > >>given current compilers. Does anyone have any thoughts?
> > >
> > >Well, it would be tricky, but fun!
> > >
> > >We've got a few drivers written in Haskell already (but not for Linux,
> > >as far as I know). For example check out the House network stack and
> > >drivers:
> > >   http://cvs.haskell.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/programatica/hOp/
> > >and
> > >   http://cvs.haskell.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/programatica/hOp/kernel/Kernel/Driver/NE2000/
> > >
> > >So there's heavy use of Data.Bits and Word# types - but nothing that
> > >isn't fairly well established in GHC Haskell, anyway.
> > >
> > >Then (for GHC, anyway) you'd have to link the kernel against libHSrts.a, 
> > >much
> > >as we do when calling Haskell from other kinds of C apps, which involves
> > >compiling the C app with all the magic flags ghc normally sets up (ghc -v9
> > >main.c is helpful).  Something like: ;)
> > >
> > >egcc -v -o a.out -DDONT_WANT_WIN32_DLL_SUPPORT main.o 
> > >-L/home/dons/lib/ghc-6.4 -lHStemplate-haskell -lHSCabal -lHSposix 
> > >-lHSposix_cbits -lHSlang -lHSmtl -lHShaskell-src -lHSunix -lHSunix_cbits 
> > >-lHShi -lHShaskell98 -lHSaltdata -lHSbase -lHSbase_cbits -lHSrts -lm -lgmp 
> > >-u GHCziBase_Izh_static_info -u GHCziBase_Czh_static_info -u 
> > >GHCziFloat_Fzh_static_info ...
> > >
> > >Then, having the kernel start up the Haskell rts (at boot would be
> > >good):
> > >     hs_init(&argc, &argv);
> > >       .. do something in Haskell or C land ...
> > >     hs_exit();
> > >
> > >Then you'd could dyn load (via GHC's rts) your Haskell driver into the C
> > >app, and use it, as long as you've got a nice ffi interface to pass
> > >values back and forward.
> > >
> > >I'm sure the fun part is in the details ;)
> > >
> > >Cheers,
> > > Don
> > >_______________________________________________
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> > >http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
> > >
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