I think that it is exciting that people are still working on Hurd and there is a new release synced with Buster. I think there is latent potential in microkernels and that we may actually be at in position to exploit some of the benefits such as heightened security and stability. While at the same time the performance cost of context switching could be reduced due to the higher number of cores on modern chips (especially compared to the hardware available in the 90s). One of the biggest adoption challenge any new operating presents is hardware compatibility and well a reason to try it. 80% software compatibility with Debian is a big accomplishment, so this is probably worth spinning up a virtual machine to play around with.
Well I've been hearing about those benefits for at least 20 years. None yet actually sighted in the wild. Any attempted explanations from the microkernel religious zealots has been thoroughly unconvincing (because mach is slow, so?). Maybe you're right, I'd love to see it if you are. But while prior performance is no guarantee of the future, as they say in the funds management adverts, a pattern of repeated failure is something maybe not to completely ignore. Is there a reason for it that is being overlooked or glossed over. (In mutual funds it was and is M.E.R.) Stallman talks about hurd being really hard to debug, is that a thing? Or is there some kind of combinational explosion using multiple servers a message passing that isn't there with a monothlithic kernel? Something else entirely?
Anyway I'll go back to the american monolithic kernel conspiracy to destroy OS research and keep the Europeans out and ask the brothers if they can think of anything. (That's a joke, right? Yet I've heard it said in the absence of irony...)
Well Intel chose minix to run their often despised management engine, so their engineers saw some benefit there to the microkernel architecture. Google is putting at least nomimal developer resources into Fuschia. And the L4 microkernel and derivatives displayed that microkernels aren't doomed to be slow.
I think that Linux is probably going to be the dominant free software kernel for quite some time especially since it has finally gotten to the point of at least receiving nominal driver support by hardware manufacturers. So Hurd will be a curiosity for now but considering its history it is still very cool that development continues. Whether it will become useful in ways that Linux is not remains to be seen.
And General Dynamics[1] bought OK Labs[2] in 2012, so presumably OKL4 or a descendant is in use there, eh? (In addition to "over 2 billion mobile phones".)
Looks interesting. My former colleagues worked on porting osx to l4 more than a decade ago.
That still doesn't look like a microkernel based, multi server os to me and does not claim to exhibit those of touted advantages. This reminds me more of dresdens live demo cd from about 2006. Great stuff, but more of a virtualisation layer than an os.
Just out of curiosity, are you saying you don’t think the OS running on the Secure Enclave processor (which is separate from the main OS) looks like a multi server microkernel, or are you still referring to the osx on L4 Experiment you mentioned?
Show me those benefits on the wild. Intel's use of Minix, Qualcomm's use of l4 aren't showing me those benefits yet. If that's changed and they have I really do want to see it. Pointing out i haven't yet shouldn't be a sin, it should be quick to prove me wrong with some reasonable links with production ready more secure, more robust OSes. I'd pay performance for security and reliability in many instances. But AFAIK I can't.
You may also recall hearing about the benefits of GC for the 40 or so years before it became mainstream (because GC is slow, right?).
When advantages exist, they will eventually be exploited. It may take new research (better algorithms), new hardware (faster processors), or a new context (internet security), and those take time, but the original reasons for inventing the technology don't expire. As far as application of technology goes, a couple decades is not very long at all.
Nearly every computing technology I use today was loudly rejected by the mainstream, right up until it wasn't. Being unpopular seems to have no impact on the eventual success of computing technology, if it's a good idea.
When you have to resort to name-calling ("religious zealots") to explain why you won't look at actual advantages in computing, it makes me even more convinced that it's the correct approach, and will eventually win out.
my applogies. I felt i responded with precisely the same tone as the comment's parent. Pointing out a lack of supporting evidence seems reasonable to me, but ymmv.
These are small os's, they're great and useful. There are others. My former, now banrkupt, employers claim L4 code I contributed to is running on over a billion phones. is uTron, eCos etc still dominant in that space?
This is not showing the touted benefits of microkernel based, multiserver operating systems. This is not a secure operating system, this is not a robust operating system, this is not self-healing drivers. Is very small, monolithic a better description of what these are?
Do something like spin up a web-server on a multi server OS and demonstrate it's very hard to hack compared to apache on linux. Make it convincing enough so people use it. DJB did this with qmail and it really is convincing. How long have mircorkernel proponents been talking up improved security, robustness and resilience? 25 years? More? So we've had time and a mountain of engineering resources, including some of my own. It's reasonable to ask to see it. If we can't, it's reasonable to ask why not yet. It really is reasonable to ask.
In my opinion it's a sign of weakness to simply belittle anyone who does. But hey, this is a weekend microkernel HN story perhaps mostly read by the microkernel faithful so reasonable may not be the way forward, easier to just to act as though it's somehow completely unreasonable. Because anyone who hitches their wagon to the next big thing desperately wants it to succeed, and why not? Promotion is important for mindshare and so on. I have sympathy but I think Feynmann summed it up correctly:
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled."
I'll say it again so the point isn't lost:
I would love to see those benefits in the wild. I really, really would.
You repeatedly crossed into snark in this thread, and fed the flamewar. Please don't. It's against the site guidelines, and we're trying for something better than that here.
Again beautifully condescending but that isn't really terribly convincing. Good to see you go right ahead with personal assumptions rather than engage with content because this tells me you are unable to do so. This kind of zero engagement while going straight to various kinds of subtle or less so ad-homonym attacks annoy me. They are contemptuous in all aspects of life.
What is your precise claim here? I state there isn't one. But you did use the word "hop" so there's that.
Point me at the microkernel based OS, using any microkernel, l4 or any other, that exhibits the standard set of microkernel benefit claims around security, robustness, self-healing drivers and has launched a thousand academic papers and all the rest.
Please. Really. I would like to see it. Even if it doesn't exist yet I'd like to see it soon. Really.
Condescension is a piss-weak technique exhibited by those who know they don't have a viable argument. Reality is that which continues whether you believe it or not. I say nothing about what seems to me about you from what you've said here because that's just plain rude.
I'd love it if we got better operating systems by any technique. I'd be very happy if came via microkernels. But it hasn't and that is just reality. Again, show otherwise if you can. I've stopped following it, maybe it exists?
But good on you for going straight for the personal attack and making broad, unspecific claims while offering no substantiation. "industry will keep on keeping on. Good things are to be favoured."
DriverKit on OSX. I thought the days were gone when people claimed osx is a microkernel based OS because it has mach code in it. https://lwn.net/Articles/703785/ doesn't make linux a microkernel. Nor dpdk, openonload nor lwip. I don't recommend hopping.
At least 25 years and these are the straws we clutch.
Maybe ditch the bad attitude, the belittlement, the condescension and try to understand why we are here? What is the actual reason that we are here? Because in understanding that it might be solved and that might be useful. Pretending we're somewhere else and anyone who says otherwise is a heretic who must be silenced is a sure way of making no progress.
You started a flamewar and then perpetuated it. We ban accounts that do that. Would you mind reviewing the site guidelines and not doing that on HN? We're trying for better than that here. Also, we don't want this place to burn to a crisp, which is what eventually happens with flamewars.
"Be kind. Don't be snarky. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
I reject the idea that I started a flame war. I felt I followed the guideline above and did it in the face of pjmlp being personal, dismissive and non-substantiative while pointing out that this was happening. I did my best but if you say I failed because he hit his mark and got a rise out of me then I accept that and apologise unreservedly. If you feel the need to ban me for this infraction then you must of course do so and I will be at peace with that decision. I am completely aware of making points with evidence that are extremely unfashionable in certain tech communities. HN at its best works well doing this as it has for me in the past. Not point scoring but actual discussion, substantiated with evidence where one can learn something. A million "+1" messages aren't worth reading after all. I'd say the same for "you're wrong" messages and "you've obviously got a personal issue" messages as we saw here.
I'm assuming pjmlp got a similar message from you, possibly a stronger one? It would seem odd to me otherwise but I suppose it isn't really of any consequence.
I've posted a comment asking the other user not to be snarky in comments here, but honestly your comments went much further over the line than theirs did.
By the way, it's clear that you know a lot and have a lot of experience with this topic. That's great! We want people like you commenting on what they know about. But it's necessary to keep yourself within the site guidelines while doing so—they're written the way they are from long experience with what makes internet conversations and communities workable. That doesn't make it easy. We all know how annoying it becomes when the person we're arguing with doesn't 'get it' and seems to stubbornly resist our attempts to reason with them. A lot of the time they're probably feeling the same way. The only solution is to restrain oneself, whether the other person is doing so or not.
