While we're on the topic: work on minimal-bootstrap in #nixpkgs has actually been picked up again since this thesis was written (October 2025).
Not only that but, as of a few hours ago, the PR implementing the last step of hooking it up to become the actual bootstrap stdenv in Nixpkgs has been merged!
https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/479322
#fullsourcebootstrap #reproduciblebuilds #stage0 #minimalbootstrap #bootstrappablebuilds
🍿 Really informative video about #Stage0 of #SpaceX #StarShip from #ZackGolden and #StarbaseCSI. 🚀 A lot of in depth tech info... as always! 🤩 #space #Weltraum #SpaceFlight #Raumfahrt #rockets #Earth #Moon #Mars
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-a3HGxxHws
https://github.com/oriansj/stage0/blob/master/stage0%2Fstage0_monitor.s#L42
i havent read much assembly before, but, why does it use a mux for that? why not another loadui? stage1_assembler-0.s uses a loadui, why is it different here?
This weekend I shrunk hex0 program on x86 from 190 -> 181 bytes.
https://github.com/oriansj/bootstrap-seeds/pull/46
We probably can't go much lower without assuming that registers at the beginning of the program are zeroed or removing features from hex0 (e.g. supporting only one set of comments or only uppercase hex letters).
I was just reviewing the new x86 hex0 bootstrap seed: https://github.com/oriansj/stage0-posix-x86/blob/master/hex0_x86.hex0. Big thanks to Noah Goldstein for making it smaller.
Now it is only 190 bytes. Excluding ELF header that's only 106 bytes of code.
For a couple of years hex0 binary was 256 bytes and before that hex0 was 357 bytes (this is the number that is still mentioned in https://guix.gnu.org/manual/devel/en/html_node/Full_002dSource-Bootstrap.html).
How SpaceX Reinvented The Launch Pad! - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwzmznJi3KU&ab_channel=TheSpaceRace
#TheSpaceRace #SpaceX #Stage0 #LaunchPad #StarShip #Engineering
Actually existing 《 #BareMetal coding 》be like:
Copyright (C) 2016 Jeremiah Orians
This file is part of #stage0
stage0 is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify. It under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. stage0 is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
## ELF Header
7F 45 4C 46
02
01
01
03
00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00
02 00
3E 00
01 00 00 00
FB 00 60 00 00 00 00 00
40 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00
40 00
38 00
01 00
00 00
00 00
00 00
## Program header table
01 00 00 00
07 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 60 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
9B 01 00 00 00 00 00 00
9B 01 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 20 00 00 00 00 00
## Hex
48 83 f8 23
74 26
48 83 f8 30
7c 6f
48 83 f8 3a
7c 5a
48 83 f8 41
7c 63
48 83 f8 47
7c 58
48 83 f8 61
7c 57
48 83 f8 67
7c 47
eb 4f
## Purge Comment
48 c7 c2 01 00 00 00
48 c7 c6 99 01 60 00
48 c7 c7 00 00 00 00
48 c7 c0 00 00 00 00
0f 05
48 85 c0
0f 84 be 00 00 00
8a 04 25 99 01 60 00
48 0f b6 c0
48 83 f8 0a
75 c8
48 c7 c0 ff ff ff ff
c3
## ascii num
48 83 e8 30
c3
## ascii low
48 83 e8 57
c3
## ascii high
48 83 e8 37
c3
## ascii other
48 c7 c0 ff ff ff ff
c3
## start
49 c7 c7 ff ff ff ff
49 c7 c6 00 00 00 00
## Loop
48 c7 c2 01 00 00 00
48 c7 c6 99 01 60 00
48 c7 c7 00 00 00 00
48 c7 c0 00 00 00 00
0f 05
48 85 c0
74 5d
8a 04 25 99 01 60 00
48 0f b6 c0
e8 3c ff ff ff
48 83 f8 00
7c c7
49 83 ff 00
7d 0c
49 89 c6
49 c7 c7 00 00 00 00
eb b5
## print
49 c1 e6 04
4c 01 f0
88 04 25 9a 01 60 00
49 c7 c7 ff ff ff ff
48 c7 c2 01 00 00 00
48 c7 c6 9a 01 60 00
48 c7 c7 01 00 00 00
48 c7 c0 01 00 00 00
0f 05
eb 80
## Done
48 c7 c7 00 00 00 00
48 c7 c0 3c 00 00 00
0f 05
## Place for input, This actually isn't required but here it is
02 00 00
#RISCV Adventures II: #Hex0
via @ekaitz_zarraga
Watch "How SpaceX Will Guarantee Its Launch Pad Never Fails Again! [Part 2]" on YouTube
https://youtu.be/UqVLP3DKOk4
#via #CSIStarbase #Starship #Starbase #Raptor #Stage0 #LaunchPlate #OrbitalLaunchMount #BoosterBidet #SpaceX #bocachica
@janneke and I were trying to fix 64-bit (#amd64 for now) #GnuMes bootstrap. After applying some fixes to M2-Planet and #mes we were able to bootstrap mes-m2 binary from #hex0. And it's working well enough to rebuild itself with #mescc.
This is expected to be in the next releases of mes 0.25 and M2-Planet 0.11.
#Stage0 of the #guix full source bootstrap is commented well enough that you can get a sense of what's going on fwiw
https://git.savannah.nongnu.org/cgit/stage0.git/tree/stage0/stage0_monitor.hex0
Recently I have been working on my new project:
https://git.stikonas.eu/andrius/stage0-uefi
This is probably the first self-hosted compiler that runs on UEFI. But it's not just that, it can also be bootstrapped from hex.
It is still work in progress and does not go beyond self-hosting M2-Planet on UEFI but its POSIX equivalent (that assumes existence of kernel such as #linux) can go all the way from hex to GCC:
https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap/
https://github.com/oriansj/stage0-posix
Impressive:
“Goodbye To The C++ Implementation Of Zig”, Andrew Kelly, Zig (https://ziglang.org/news/goodbye-cpp/).
On HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33913231
On Lobsters: https://lobste.rs/s/g55iso/goodbye_c_implementation_zig
On /r/Zig: https://www.reddit.com/r/Zig/comments/zgbx4g/goodbye_to_the_c_implementation_of_zig_how_we/
I have a lot of respect for the people working on these hard problems for decades!
The goal, the holy grail of computing, to have a Full Source Bootstrap, seem so close.
For the latest developments check out the mailing list:
https://www.freelists.org/post/bootstrappable/GNU-Mes-024-released
https://www.freelists.org/post/bootstrappable/stage0posix-M2Planet-release
