Playing around with the Fuchsia operating system • Hacker News Board

Re: Playing around with the Fuchsia operating system

#11

Post by weego » Tue, Jun 09, 2020, 2:38 PM UTC

kyaghmour wrote: post #4

This debate about monolithic vs. micro-kernels has been had many times. Maybe this time the resolution is different, who knows. But FWIW Linux didn't reach its success because someone made a feature comparison between it and what else was out there in a spreadsheet and somehow discovered how Linux was so much better. Instead, Linux won (and continues to win) because it's the Rocky Balboa of operating systems. It may…

And here's me thinking it was just because shared hosting providers didn't have to deal with insane and onerous licensing costs and vm isolation problems

Re: Playing around with the Fuchsia operating system

#12

Post by est31 » Tue, Jun 09, 2020, 2:38 PM UTC

sk0g wrote: post #2

I thought it was going to be some boring material UI screenshots, but this is so much more interesting! Susceptible to the usual C bugs, albeit with minor impact. I thought they were switching most of the kernel and drivers to Rust, for some reason. Edit: not a Rust fanboy by any means, hell, I've never even opened a Rust file.

> I thought they were switching most of the kernel and drivers to Rust, for some reason.

Note that zircon itself is not allowed to contain any Rust [0]. It's not exactly specified what they mean by the kernel, but it seems that this includes not just the microkernel but also everything that lives in the zircon top level directory, which is enough to boot the system. tokei says there is not a single line of Rust in that entire directory (but about 1 million lines of C/C++).

[0]: https://fuchsia.googlesource.com/fuchsia/+/cb20372465f875ff4...

Re: Playing around with the Fuchsia operating system

#13

Post by logicprog » Tue, Jun 09, 2020, 2:38 PM UTC

modeless wrote: post #7

It seems such a waste to spend all the effort to write a whole new OS and all these drivers with the same old buffer overflow bugs we've been fighting since the dawn of time. It doesn't have to be this way anymore!

Indeed. I wonder why they didn't go with Rust? They seem to be trying to make the perfect architecture from scratch without worries about complexity or how experimental it is or even how long it'll take, and yet they don't go with a language that'll solve a whole other class of problems? Seems like an odd choice.

Maybe they're just making use of the existing C++ talent pool at Google.

Re: Playing around with the Fuchsia operating system

#14

Post by phkahler » Tue, Jun 09, 2020, 2:39 PM UTC

modeless wrote: post #7

It seems such a waste to spend all the effort to write a whole new OS and all these drivers with the same old buffer overflow bugs we've been fighting since the dawn of time. It doesn't have to be this way anymore!

There is an OS kernel being written in Rust.

Re: Playing around with the Fuchsia operating system

#15

Post by pier25 » Tue, Jun 09, 2020, 2:41 PM UTC

A couple of years ago it was believed that Fuchsia would replace Android and ChromeOS. Then, IIRC, it was said in a Google IO that it was just some sort of experiment to test new OS ideas.

What do you think is Google's masterplan for Fuchsia?

Re: Playing around with the Fuchsia operating system

#16

Post by dkersten » Tue, Jun 09, 2020, 2:45 PM UTC

modeless wrote: post #7

It seems such a waste to spend all the effort to write a whole new OS and all these drivers with the same old buffer overflow bugs we've been fighting since the dawn of time. It doesn't have to be this way anymore!

Sure, but if people don't make any serious attempts at creating something completely new, how do we know we're not stuck in a local minimum in terms of what OS tech we could have?

Or do you mean in terms of not using a "safer" language like Rust? I assume its because its not what the devs working on it know.

Re: Playing around with the Fuchsia operating system

#17

Post by wbl » Tue, Jun 09, 2020, 2:46 PM UTC

jfb wrote: post #6

kyaghmour wrote: post #4

This debate about monolithic vs. micro-kernels has been had many times. Maybe this time the resolution is different, who knows. But FWIW Linux didn't reach its success because someone made a feature comparison between it and what else was out there in a spreadsheet and somehow discovered how Linux was so much better. Instead, Linux won (and continues to win) because it's the Rocky Balboa of operating systems. It may…

Keep in mind, too, that path dependence plays a huge role here. Linux took off when the alternatives were Windows NT, Novell Netware, or commercial Unixes running on underpowered RISC hardware.

BSD was around!

Re: Playing around with the Fuchsia operating system

#18

Post by nicoburns » Tue, Jun 09, 2020, 2:48 PM UTC

logicprog wrote: post #13

modeless wrote: post #7

It seems such a waste to spend all the effort to write a whole new OS and all these drivers with the same old buffer overflow bugs we've been fighting since the dawn of time. It doesn't have to be this way anymore!

Indeed. I wonder why they didn't go with Rust? They seem to be trying to make the perfect architecture from scratch without worries about complexity or how experimental it is or even how long it'll take, and yet they don't go with a language that'll solve a whole other class of problems? Seems like an odd choice. Maybe they're just making use of the existing C++ talent pool at Google.

Lots of the userland pieces are in Rust. I don't think Rust gives you much advantage for kernel code (esp. in a microkernel), because most of it is unsafe anyway. And Rust has some missing pieces for this kind of code (for example, using custom allocators on a per-data structure basis is still difficult).

Re: Playing around with the Fuchsia operating system

#19

Post by kenforthewin » Tue, Jun 09, 2020, 2:50 PM UTC

pier25 wrote: post #15

A couple of years ago it was believed that Fuchsia would replace Android and ChromeOS. Then, IIRC, it was said in a Google IO that it was just some sort of experiment to test new OS ideas. What do you think is Google's masterplan for Fuchsia?

Like most of their products, I don't think there is a master plan.

Re: Playing around with the Fuchsia operating system

#20

Post by dkersten » Tue, Jun 09, 2020, 2:50 PM UTC

bsaul wrote: post #5

I'm both very excited someone is taking a shot at trying something new on kernel side. But i can't help wonder about what would a future look like where 90% of hardware run on a Google-owned operating system.

Yeah, I'm really happy someone with enough clout to possibly make it reality is doing it, but I don't really want a future where everything runs on google stuff (like with android, now)