AFAIK it's possible to write linux kernel modules in Perl. It's probably a blessing for prototyping...

Another interesting thing I just discovered today : http://www.genezzo.com/. An "enterprise strength" RDBMS, with clustering and other high-end features, entirely written in Perl.

And then there's that CAD application prototype written in perl, Puzzle Bobble, and some others... Well, actually it seems anything can be done in Perl after all :)

It could be written, but I'm not so sure a real kernel module could be run in Perl. Kernel modules run in one of the processor's privileged modes, which are the sole possession of the kernel. Perl-as-she-is runs in user mode and I don't know how to make the kernel do it any differently.

A "user-level driver" is a different story. Perl has ioctl for that, and it works well. I once wrote pieces of one and I'm very proud of it, even though it's still incomplete (ran into integer width trouble). It's the only time I ever wrote anything with ioctl.

After Compline,
Zaxo

And it would have to be some desperate and twisted evil foo hackery that would code an entire operating system kernel in perl (that could run stand-alone). Perl device drivers do not sound like a Good Idea.

I did once moot the idea of turning Parrot into an operating system. But Parrot ne Perl after all.