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I think I found a Mac kernel bug?

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Re: I think I found a Mac kernel bug?

#81
post #83

I've edited 'he' to 'she' in the two otherwise fine comments that made this mistake ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16251566 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16251562 ) and grouped several empty replies and one lame off-topic subthread under this one. It's rare that we do something like this (and I've emailed the author), but it seems fairer than to penalize their original posts, which were otherwise i…

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[deleted]

Re: I think I found a Mac kernel bug?

#82
post #65
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank goodness that Linux is consistent and has no bugs :-) Ubuntu still doesn't let me change my IP address to a static one via the UI and video drivers still crash or result in hours of googling and reading contradicting articles on how to change xorg.conf Software has bugs. Operating systems are hard. It doesn't matter where you will go, you will most likely deal with similar issues. Whether it be Linux, Windows o…

My Ubuntu 16.04 LTS X-Windows just froze today multiple times, not even changing to virtual terminals was possible, only hard reboot.

I spent hours last night trying to get Bumblebee to work with my Optimus laptop. Ubuntu is a great plug-and-play distribution, except when it isn’t.

Re: I think I found a Mac kernel bug?

#83
I've edited 'he' to 'she' in the two otherwise fine comments that made this mistake (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16251566 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16251562) and grouped several empty replies and one lame off-topic subthread under this one. It's rare that we do something like this (and I've emailed the author), but it seems fairer than to penalize their original posts, which were otherwise informative and on topic.

Re: I think I found a Mac kernel bug?

#84
post #83

I've edited 'he' to 'she' in the two otherwise fine comments that made this mistake ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16251566 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16251562 ) and grouped several empty replies and one lame off-topic subthread under this one. It's rare that we do something like this (and I've emailed the author), but it seems fairer than to penalize their original posts, which were otherwise i…

[flagged]

No doubt, but by getting further into it like this, you blew it up by a lot and produced by far the least interesting thing about this thread.

The internet is replete with opportunities for getting triggered and starting flamewars. For HN not to sink into a deeper circle of hell, we all need to resist these temptations. So could you and everyone else please not take HN threads on generic, divisive tangents in the future?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: I think I found a Mac kernel bug?

#85
Back in Leopard days, I was playing with the x86-64 ABI on Mac OS X (no real documentation existed whatsoever, or at least that I could find, except for the source code). Very soon I accidentally ran into a kernel panic that could be reduced to a three-instruction program:

mov rax, 1

mov rdi, 1

syscall

and it would bring down the entire OS (kernel panic) when run by any user mode application under a standard non-root user. Took a few releases for them to fix that. I stopped trusting them from a low-level reliability perspective since then.

Fuzzing their system call interface may not have been a bad idea.

P.S. XNU is an interesting as it lets userspace use Mach syscalls as well as a bunch of BSD system calls directly. Probably esoteric interactions between them are not very well-thought-out. (I hope I am not offending Avie Tevanian here :))

Re: I think I found a Mac kernel bug?

#86
post #38

I think High Sierra is the worst Mac OS release yet. I’m sure there’s a cognitive bias partially to blame (since it’s the most recent) but it looks like we are way past that.

The mach kernels in general are buggy, regardless of the release. e.g. I'm pretty sure they end up delivering SIGPIPE to the wrong thread in some circumstances on Sierra. There is also a problem with recvmsg not returning control messages some time. Another reason they killed OS X Server maybe.

On the other hand, the Darwin kernel also powers iOS, and Apple seems to be eager to keep the system secure so that the App Store appears trustworthy. While a local privilege escalation might seem dull on macOS, the fact that the same flaw might affect iOS where untrustworthy local apps need to be sandboxed is probably the saving grace for Macs.

Re: I think I found a Mac kernel bug?

#87
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the initial bug reporter. This machine is on 10.13.3.

I don't even use a mac but I've heard terrible things about High Sierra, is it really that bad? Seems like they pushed a bunch of substantial changes to the kernel.

I've waited for the dust to settle before doing the upgrade, and did upgrade one machine after another, but I didn't meet anything problematic, this has been a smooth upgrade.

I've waited a bit after the "root" security issue, and now I prefer to be on the latest version.

Re: I think I found a Mac kernel bug?

#88
post #79
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is you pay a huge premium for Apple products, Linux distros are generally free (unless you want enterprise-style support). The same criticism applies to Windows - give it away for free and I might care less about crashes and the huge slide in quality over the last ~5 years.

I'm happy to pay a premium to never again have to deal with xorg.conf. All platforms come with a cost.

FWIW, X configures itself nowadays and Wayland also just works. But I know where you are coming from. Everything audio related for example is still in very bad shape when you want more than Intel HDA.

Re: I think I found a Mac kernel bug?

#89
post #79
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is you pay a huge premium for Apple products, Linux distros are generally free (unless you want enterprise-style support). The same criticism applies to Windows - give it away for free and I might care less about crashes and the huge slide in quality over the last ~5 years.

I'm happy to pay a premium to never again have to deal with xorg.conf. All platforms come with a cost.

Yeah, except 15 years ago it was xf86config with xinerama if you wanted multiple heads, and lcds are a walk in the park compared to CRTs - I actually killed a nice 21” monitor by screwing up the frequencies. I even recall the delightful process of having to modify graphics drivers to work with the bizarre Chips&Technologies integrated graphics I had. At that point, OSX was such a breath of fresh air.

Xorg.conf is a delightful stroll through a meadow compared to the nightmare fuel that came before, and in setting Linux (Kali,Ubuntu) on several machines of various spec over the last weeks, it has Just Worked.

Re: I think I found a Mac kernel bug?

#90
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the initial bug reporter. This machine is on 10.13.3.

I don't even use a mac but I've heard terrible things about High Sierra, is it really that bad? Seems like they pushed a bunch of substantial changes to the kernel.

I havent had an issue with it. Other people have.
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