a short update

I can print page tables correctly now. This is good because it's the first time I can practically display page tables in operation and it shows I've understood how the hierarchy works. One complication in L4 is that the page tables themselves have a virtual to physical mapping, i.e. they're not flat mapped. So each entry in a 1st level table must first be converted to its virtual address before accessing. Anyways, will try to fix the spurious irq problem now.

I think there may be some point re-writing the kernel in C. I'm not competent enough to do so yet, but it would 1) Help understand how it works - this is the major reason, 2) C is better than C++ - unfortunately I think this fact is true for system level software. The first benefit I would have is, C code in linux kernel style is more readable. C++ just isn't. So, at least the sources are there to read in case there's no documentation. Usually in details there's never documentation anyways. The biggest problem I'm having now with understanding L4 is the c++ sources. c++ hides the implementation by using high-level clauses, whereas you want to see the exact implementation and C just does that to the right amount of detail. Certainly you don't want to know which register is used for what most of the time so you don't need assembly. But I think going lower-level as in C helps understanding the code. This is especially crucial in system-level software I think. Enough chit chat, back to work now.