The main use-case for these devices is in embedded-applications, for which there are many other operating systems (FreeRTOS and the like).
What you're not going to find is any real desktop-OS support (other than Linux). Its been a while since MIPS had any presence on the desktop. (i.e SGI).
Acknowledging the huge amount of work that needs to be done for an alternative to be adopted is not defeatism, it's realism. There have been plenty of minority, research, or experimental operating systems over the past few decades. Hardly any of them persisted, because it's a very Darwinian winner-take-all market.
IMO this is bit of a "the chicken or the egg came first?" problem.
The industry had a lot of needs in terms of computing when computers started becoming physically small. The very first few things -- OS, any tech paradigmae, chip designs, shell architecture and what-have-you -- that seemed to do the job good enough got 99.9% of investments and mindshare and thus even if everything we currently use is ugly and barely working, there's no economic interest to revisit the other competing standards from the dawn of computing and see if there are golden geese hidden in there somewhere.
So when a carpenter tells you "I need a natural wood and screws because that's what works best" you really should be reading that as: "nobody tried to invent better materials and joinery techniques or tooling so I'll stick to what I know".
"Good enough" is not a slogan to follow.
Sadly, I'm not aware of anybody working on such a project. Most people making "OS"s these days either just make yet-another-linux-distribution and confirm that old saying about the definition of insanity, or they're content to make some completely academic kernel that no one can use for anything but academic purposes. I wish I had the skills to start one myself.
The Lisp-all-the-way-down part doesn’t seem as useful as it was originally. You could get 80% of the functionality with 10% of the work of a full OS.
I think there is, perhaps, value in a middle ground. You could take the Linux kernel (chosen here for its existing driver support, openness, stable syscall ABI, and presence of virtualization and namespacing features), but throw away basically everything on top of it and build a new "operating environment". Then, over time, you could fork the kernel away, ditching legacy syscalls and features, maybe creating a stable driver ABI finally, etc.
You're missing the point. If the only goal was "functionality," a quick-and-dirty hack on top of existing systems would suffice.
However, the GP wants a system that's reasonably comprehensible all the way down, so he can have some confidence that it's not working against him in some way. The accidental complexity of decades of legacy software works strongly against that.
Hit the nail on the head.
Things are impossibly complex and convoluted nowadays. And working against us more often than not -- as you said.
It feels like we really need to start over. All the way down to the CPU and GPU hardware architecture.
Realism is often just a mask over defeatism.
The market they are headed for is embedded, where every cent of the BOM counts. Licensing costs can add up surprisingly fast as part of that.
Server parts are a big step above that - MIPS used to play there, but after a short peak they failed many times over. It tried in the networking and embedded space for a while, but then had its lunch stolen by all the cheap ARM vendors from below, and stomped on by x86 from above.
And then desktop/laptop parts? Unless you are Apple (and even then), pushing a new arch on the desktop is a massive, expensive task, and I can’t see it being worthwhile.
Are you sure? RISC-V is about to explode in the embedded space. I always ask our suppliers about their RISC-V plans and it's shifted over the last 3 years. They've gone from "what's that?" to the point where they are all aware, some are hedging, and some are going full tilt but not quite at the stage of "here are our offerings". Anyone who is not currently a MIPS user (chip maker) in this space is years behind.
RISC-V user?
The number of operating systems that have succeeded in any real way is tiny, and probably not big enough to draw any conclusions from. None of the major players today got to where they are now by following the conventional wisdom of their day. I assume the next big OS (or three) will similarly succeed by breaking all the rules we thought we knew.
i agree with you that we can do better, but as other people have commented, that wound is pretty much healed over.
integrated distributed management, process migration, and radically simplified OS state might put some devops people out of a job..but the industry doesnt like to take hops that large. the configuration and deployment hodgepodge is 'good enough'
did you have some specific ideas you think would be interested enough to drive adoption?
Imagine the tightness of a mobile OS running close to the metal and how responsive that device could feel. You used to be able to switch on a device and the OS would immediately be there - indeed embedded devices are often still like this.
Perhaps I'm just being too nostalgic though, and I realise Amiga OS was missing essential things like memory protection etc. that we now take for granted.
maybe some foundational advance in real security. better abstractions and performance aren't enough.