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Microsoft built its own custom Linux kernel for its new IoT service

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Re: Microsoft built its own custom Linux kernel for its new IoT service

#271

Post by WorldMaker »

rkangel wrote: post #201
_sh wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, but there is a lot of misunderstanding around this end of the market, mainly because advances have blurred the traditional segmentation. When talking about ARM, the 'M' in Cortex-M means 'microcontroller' whereas the 'A' in Cortex-A means 'application'. Cortex-A systems are often at the centre of 'System-on-Chips' and will run linux, and indeed the NT kernel as well, as they are bundled with enough RAM…

> And who the hell can agree on just what 'embedded' means these days? FWIW, my personal definition is "doesn't have an MMU"

Interesting definition choice, as what constitutes an MMU has also fuzzily shifted over the years. From what I've seen, most of the SoC designs contain what in the microcontroller world of the 90s would be considered more than a minimal MMU, take for instance the classic M68451 [1], and the multi-stage bus pipelines and super-wide buses of these 'embedded' designs easily surpass such early MMUs.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_68451

Re: Microsoft built its own custom Linux kernel for its new IoT service

#272

Post by NiveaGeForce »

gowld wrote: post #269
NiveaGeForce wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can disable Cortana in every version of Windows 10 from regular settings, and it even asks you upon install. Telemetry can be set to basic in settings too, which is harmless, and it also asks you upon install.

On my machine right now, Cortana is Disabled in settings and Group Policy settings (you can't disable all of Cortana from regular settings, only the "Hey Cortana" and various ad popups) but the UI is clearly still visible in my taskbar.

If you select disable or disable its permissions in settings, it's disabled.

The fact that there is a Search UI on your taskbar (which you can remove with right click), doesn't imply that Cortana's data collection is enabled.

Re: Microsoft built its own custom Linux kernel for its new IoT service

#273

Post by oldcynic »

threeseed wrote: post #152
oldcynic wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pro edition ... Of course they collect data There's something fundamentally wrong with that to my mind, given how the Pro release of Windows has always been placed. I should not need to get an Enterprise release to be able to manage my own machine, restrict the phoning home, and control other basic features of my machine used in a professional context. I've no need of 101 features for managing 1,000 desktops and ne…

I was under the impression you can disable all of the telemetry. Is that not the case ? And Pro really refers to Prosumer not Professional.

No it really doesn't.

Microsoft have marketed it to business and portrayed it as intended for professional business use ever since XP introduced the version split. Until large enough to be allowed near volume licensing SKUs, when you pass some point past a hundred seats, it's the most professional offering a business can get.

That covers nearly all small and medium businesses.

Re: Microsoft built its own custom Linux kernel for its new IoT service

#274

Post by komali2 »

ComodoHacker wrote: post #218
komali2 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Don't roll your own security" has been the marching drum of an entire sector of IoT companies working within the connectivity "slice of the pie." The general mindset has been that iot has a couple slices: the "thing" (air conditioner vibration sensor), how that thing is connected (Ethernet plugged directly into a smart vibration sensor, or vibration sensor plugged into a connected data-recording device), the transmi…

>"Don't roll your own security" has been the marching drum of an entire sector of IoT companies And now it gradually translates into "don't own your devices, cause you can't handle security", both for users and small and medium size vendors. And the meaning of "device" is gradually translating to "any stuff we wear or use". Welcome to the shiny IoT future.

I hear this frustration a lot - mostly related to wearables and internet of shit, right?

We shifted from consumer IoT devices because there's just no money there. Toy Mail is one of our only customers that made it work.

In my mind, the places to look for Iot solutions are generally the same places you need a hardhat and steel toe boots to enter.

Re: Microsoft built its own custom Linux kernel for its new IoT service

#275

Post by mkup »

threeseed wrote: post #152
oldcynic wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pro edition ... Of course they collect data There's something fundamentally wrong with that to my mind, given how the Pro release of Windows has always been placed. I should not need to get an Enterprise release to be able to manage my own machine, restrict the phoning home, and control other basic features of my machine used in a professional context. I've no need of 101 features for managing 1,000 desktops and ne…

I was under the impression you can disable all of the telemetry. Is that not the case ? And Pro really refers to Prosumer not Professional.

It gathers a lot of info and transfers it to vast number of domains under Microsoft control:

http://www.pcministry.com/win10_telemetry/summary_stats_and_...

Re: Microsoft built its own custom Linux kernel for its new IoT service

#276

Post by antoniuschan99 »

anujdeshpande wrote: post #165
antoniuschan99 wrote: post #131

Is this a 'fork' of an ARM/MediaTek chip? I'm currently on the Espressif platform for our stack. How does it compare overall and in terms of security?

How are you finding the Espressif stack?

It's not bad. Pretty stable. It still feels very much for the hobbyist though.

Re: Microsoft built its own custom Linux kernel for its new IoT service

#277

Post by komali2 »

michaelt wrote: post #206
komali2 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Don't roll your own security" has been the marching drum of an entire sector of IoT companies working within the connectivity "slice of the pie." The general mindset has been that iot has a couple slices: the "thing" (air conditioner vibration sensor), how that thing is connected (Ethernet plugged directly into a smart vibration sensor, or vibration sensor plugged into a connected data-recording device), the transmi…

Let specialists specialize. No reason not to let big daddy Microsoft handle the messy bits. If you're planning to make a product that will last 20 years - a residential thermostat, for example - using a third-party service as the foundation of your product seems naïve to me. I mean, Microsoft or AWS is at least better than a startup, in that they're less likely to go bankrupt - but even Windows XP, one of most long-l…

If you go with partners, though, swapping them out may not be too painful. I mean, working on twenty year old cold is always painful, but at least for some of my demo devices, when Autodesk's iot platform was retired, I swapped it to Microsoft's pretty easily. It's just data.

Re: Microsoft built its own custom Linux kernel for its new IoT service

#278

Post by choudanu4 »

wicket wrote: post #251

Meanwhile, The Linux Foundation decided that Linux isn't suitable and developed Zephyr [1] instead for IoT. [1] https://www.zephyrproject.org/

But I was under the impression that Linux isn't suitable as a real-time operating system (RTOS)[1] (which Microsoft may very well not require for their IoT systems). So the Linux Foundation providing an alternative free kernel meeting RTOS requirements makes perfect sense.

I'm not as clear on the history, but was Linux ever pitched as capable of being real-time OS? I don't think so. The hard requirements for real-time generally lead to very different systems than general-purpose operating systems.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time_operating_system

Re: Microsoft built its own custom Linux kernel for its new IoT service

#279

Post by drexlspivey »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #256
drexlspivey wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to my pihole, with every telemetry option turned off, it stills tries to phone home hundreds of times per day.

You sure it's not checking for updates?

No, updates work fine. Some blocked domains : settings-win.data.microsoft.com, v10.vortex-win.data.microsoft.com, mobile.pipe.aria.microsoft.com, nexusrules.officeapps.live.com

Re: Microsoft built its own custom Linux kernel for its new IoT service

#280

Post by jaclaz »

gmueckl wrote: post #130
lobster_johnson wrote: post #7

The article pretends to answer why they're using Linux instead of the NT kernel, but the answer is either incomplete or a non sequitur; it seems to imply that since the devices has very little power, their kernel isn't a good fit. I thought the NT kernel was pretty good at low power, and also has a highly respected internal design?

Low power is relative: NT is good at saving battery on laptops, but these are supercomputers compared to IoT hardware. The most minimal NT system that I have seen so far was still 50MB. Not sure if MS was able to shrink that further. But in a world where every byte of flash or RAm saved can lead to essential power savings, this is far too big. With a custom linux kernel with no extra drivers and modules and busybox i…

>The most minimal NT system that I have seen so far was still 50MB.

Well, it depends on what you want to do.

A really minimal XP with minlogon is around 10 Mb (actually around 20 MB that on NTFS compressed volumes are around 10), of which quite a bit is things that could be removed or greatly reduced in size recompiling the programs/dll's if the source was available, that won't do much, while with a decent amount of base tools it comes out at 30-40 MB or so.

Some references to a dedicated project:

[0] http://mistyprojects.co.uk/minixp/docs/files/index.html

[1] http://mistyprojects.co.uk/minixp/docs/files/intro.htm

[2] http://mistyprojects.co.uk/minixp/docs/files/about.htm

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