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The Jury Is In: Monolithic OS Design Is Flawed [pdf]

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Re: The Jury Is In: Monolithic OS Design Is Flawed [pdf]

#21

Post by bunderbunder »

monocasa wrote: post #14
pjmlp wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which given the way legacy AMD drivers story has been handled on Ubuntu, it is quite far from actually being so. My Asus Netbook no longer gets all the acceleration options that it used to have pre 16.04. Linux is successful because it is a free beer UNIX clone.

You still have the source to the old drivers. It's just not a priority for others to support anymore, but you have the means to go add that support yourself, or pay a third party to do it for you. Contrast with when windows changed the video driver architecture in Vista, and the only option you had was to pound sand.

Seems like a pretty easy cost/benefit analysis to me:

I can either spend thousands of dollars worth of my time on updating the driver, or I can pay someone else thousands of dollars to do it. Or I can spend a fraction of that on a new video card.

Seems like the only solution for Vista users is the only solution I'd ever have gone with, anyway.

Re: The Jury Is In: Monolithic OS Design Is Flawed [pdf]

#22

Post by Vogtinator »

pjmlp wrote: post #16
pweissbrod wrote: post #8

I wonder if there exists a parallel dimension where linux is microkernel design and folks are pushing for monolothic citing the driver friendliness and performance

Lack of performance on microkernels is a myth nowadays. QNX and many embedded OS, some of which driving high integrity software, are all microkernel based. Including the one most likely handling the real time communication of this mobile radio.

"Fast enough design" does not equal "faster design".

Re: The Jury Is In: Monolithic OS Design Is Flawed [pdf]

#23

Post by agumonkey »

rhencke wrote: post #4
nasoieu wrote: post #3

That chart with the growth of the Linux kernel discredits everything. The Linux kernel continues to grow because they are obsessed with keeping all drivers in mainline instead of having a stable API for them as any sane project would.

I believe one of the reasons Linux continues to be successful today is _because_ they keep the drivers in mainline _without_ a stable API. It is a key motivator to ensure drivers remain available and supported well into the future of Linux.

So we should have two numbers, actual kernel, whole tree.

I am quite convinced that if they kept it that way it was because some unplanned property caused worse driver status with an API; too many delays, improper usage I don't know.

If there's no solid reason, then I'd be happy to have split codebases.

Re: The Jury Is In: Monolithic OS Design Is Flawed [pdf]

#24

Post by btilly »

nasoieu wrote: post #17
rhencke wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe one of the reasons Linux continues to be successful today is _because_ they keep the drivers in mainline _without_ a stable API. It is a key motivator to ensure drivers remain available and supported well into the future of Linux.

Linux on the desktop would have succeeded with a stable driver API. Having hardware with closed source drivers supported could have being a walk in the park for OEMs. Bad 3D, wireless, etc. support is what killed Linux. OEMs would have probably made more and better drivers if they didn't have to make changes to them every few months or go through the effort of releasing and mainlining the source.

This is your opinion. The opinion of informed observers who are actually doing the work is the opposite - OEMs produce buggy, incomplete drivers and don't care to fix the bugs. In fact, given the choice, they don't want to allow anyone else to dig into their drivers because doing so can only lead to embarrassment. Plus exploits that are discovered are likely to be cross-platform exploits.

Any operating system that wishes stability therefore has to put barriers between themselves and the driver. And, preferably, should use drivers that they can audit themselves rather than trusting OEMs.

As an example of this outside of the open source world, the biggest reason why Windows used to have a reputation for BSODs is that they were dependent on third party drivers. Windows made it harder for third parties to take down their OS, shipped tools to audit drivers for bugs, and forced OEMs to clean up their act. (Which they didn't do voluntarily.)

Re: The Jury Is In: Monolithic OS Design Is Flawed [pdf]

#26

Post by stcredzero »

lainga wrote: post #19
pweissbrod wrote: post #8

I wonder if there exists a parallel dimension where linux is microkernel design and folks are pushing for monolothic citing the driver friendliness and performance

the Hurd-verse lives! Richard Stallman is a clean-shaven, foulmouthed autocrat, and Linus is composing folk songs about joining hands with Intel and Nvidia!

Who is dressing up as a monk?

Re: The Jury Is In: Monolithic OS Design Is Flawed [pdf]

#27

Post by nasoieu »

btilly wrote: post #24
nasoieu wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux on the desktop would have succeeded with a stable driver API. Having hardware with closed source drivers supported could have being a walk in the park for OEMs. Bad 3D, wireless, etc. support is what killed Linux. OEMs would have probably made more and better drivers if they didn't have to make changes to them every few months or go through the effort of releasing and mainlining the source.

This is your opinion. The opinion of informed observers who are actually doing the work is the opposite - OEMs produce buggy, incomplete drivers and don't care to fix the bugs. In fact, given the choice, they don't want to allow anyone else to dig into their drivers because doing so can only lead to embarrassment. Plus exploits that are discovered are likely to be cross-platform exploits. Any operating system that wi…

It's better to have buggy, incomplete drivers than no drivers at all.

Re: The Jury Is In: Monolithic OS Design Is Flawed [pdf]

#28

Post by roblabla »

Vogtinator wrote: post #22
pjmlp wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lack of performance on microkernels is a myth nowadays. QNX and many embedded OS, some of which driving high integrity software, are all microkernel based. Including the one most likely handling the real time communication of this mobile radio.

"Fast enough design" does not equal "faster design".

No, but fast enough, more secure, more flexible, easier to understand design tends to equate better design.

Re: The Jury Is In: Monolithic OS Design Is Flawed [pdf]

#29

Post by iforgotpassword »

pjmlp wrote: post #18
monocasa wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still have the source to the old drivers. It's just not a priority for others to support anymore, but you have the means to go add that support yourself, or pay a third party to do it for you. Contrast with when windows changed the video driver architecture in Vista, and the only option you had was to pound sand.

I skipped Vista, however my XP drivers were fully supported on the upgrade to 7.

Some xp drivers work on 7, most don't. Also unlike user space, you cannot run 32 bit drivers on 64 bit windows, so unless you were running 32 bit win7 you needed 64 bit xp drivers, which were rare. Are you sure you explicitly installed xp drivers and didn't just happen to have hardware where windows shipped matching drivers or could download them from the windows driver database? (Or downloaded an installer bundle from the manufacturer's website that just contained drivers for all supported platforms..)

Re: The Jury Is In: Monolithic OS Design Is Flawed [pdf]

#30

Post by gnulinux »

nkkollaw wrote: post #10

Linux is the most popular OS in the world (of course, counting Android), so I guess this means it doesn't really matter is monolithic is flawed, or it is not flawed enough.

Isn't GNU/Linux (so, no Android) alone most popular OS too, thanks to servers and cloud? Any data on this?
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