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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]

#31

Post by monocasa »

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.

It's not a myth. Real time doesn't mean fast, it just means deterministic.

And I'll throw out there that many times the the term microkernel in a lot of embedded OSs has been contorted by marketing speak into something unrecognizable. Basically if you have multiple threads in the kernel, structure the kernel code into modules (but perhaps don't even allow dynamic loading of modules), and can communicate through async queues, then it's called a microkernel. For instance VXWorks until recently didn't have memory protection between tasks, but still called itself a microkernel.

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

#32

Post by iforgotpassword »

nasoieu wrote: post #27
btilly wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is your opinion. I prefer using hardware with stable drivers, working reliably.

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

#33

Post by bena »

andrewstuart2 wrote: post #13
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

If parallel dimensions exist, then it's most certainly one of the closest dimensions to ours. If I'm sure of one thing, it's that as soon as we decided to build everything as Microkernels, we'd have the same squeaky wheels touting the massive benefits of Monotlithic OS design. We're hilariously cyclical in our preferences. "Think of all the runtime efficiencies of the shared memory, and how much easier it would be to…

I think it's just a matter of being deep in the weeds on whatever thing we're currently invested in.

When we choose a direction, we see all the difficulties that path provides and kind of forget about all of the things it gives us.

And when looking at the other option, we see all the things that would overcome our difficulties while assuming that we get to keep everything good from the current path.

Everything is a trade off.

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

#34

Post by monocasa »

bunderbunder wrote: post #21
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.

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.

Sure the cost/benefit works out the same for you (which is why no one has done the work), but that's different from the full set of options available to you in both cases.

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

#36

Post by Jweb_Guru »

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.

It's not misleading because most Linux kernel drivers run in kernel space; hence compromising them indeed potentially compromises the whole system, which is exactly the article's point. The fact that they're often buggy and poorly supported, unlike the "real" kernel, makes things worse and doesn't invalidate anything.

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

#37

Post by monocasa »

pjmlp wrote: post #9
core-questions wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Womp womp. Most of those netbooks are unusably slow anyhow, and were when they were brand new too. Run an older kernel on there and call it a day.

Sorry but a DirectX 11 class dual core APU is good enough for general purpose gaming. And runnig legacy kernels? No thanks.

Which GPU is it specifically?

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

#39

Post by Jweb_Guru »

brewski wrote: post #11

This is like saying Linux is more secure than Windows because not all of Window's critical vulnerabilities appear in Linux.

What classes of vulnerabilities are you referring to that are likely to show up in a microkernel-based design but not in a monolithic one? Do you think adding those classes of vulnerabilities to the picture will result in more, about the same, or fewer critical security issues between the systems overall, and why? Please be specific.

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

#40

Post by nkkollaw »

gnulinux wrote: post #30
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?

Ah, possible--but not consumer.
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