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Playing around with the Fuchsia operating system

blog.quarkslab.com

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Re: Playing around with the Fuchsia operating system

#151

Post by fragmede »

modeless wrote: post #30
nicoburns wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I've heard this kind of argument a lot and it's getting tiresome when we just keep seeing the same old preventable bugs being a problem time and time again. Yes, a kernel written in a safe language will still have security bugs. But it would absolutely have a very large positive impact. And any problems with safe languages can be worked around with a bit of imagination, especially with the level of effort already req…

If you turn off all the safety checks, is Rust still safe?

It seems a microkernel architecture allows for the kernel to be as small as possible, with the scheduler and drivers and everything written in a safe language in user-space. In that case, it is anything other than vanity that says the kernel is better off being written in a "safe" language with all the safeties turned off, compared to a unsafe language?

Re: Playing around with the Fuchsia operating system

#152

Post by jayd16 »

hellcow wrote: post #68
RivieraKid wrote: post #57

I'm more excited about the possibility of a high quality desktop OS rather than the kernel. The Linux kernel is great but a great open-source desktop OS doesn't exist today. Specifically, this product doesn't exist today: - Desktop environment that matches or surpasses Mac OS in quality, performance and UX design. - It includes seamless synchronization between devices. - Apps are sandboxed, similarly to Android or iO…

You just described ChromeOS.

I use chromeOS as my daily driver but even with Linux and Android app support it doesn't work as a dev machine. The hardware isn't there and its just not positioned well enough for vendors to take it seriously.

Re: Playing around with the Fuchsia operating system

#153

Post by vezycash »

monadic2 wrote: post #133
moron4hire wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just described UWP apps on Windows 10. Developers flat out rejected it because of the smartphone-like sandboxing.

Can you elaborate? What is UWP and why did devs not like it? All the critique i see with a quick google comes from game devs.

Developer push back first started with windows 8 with fears of lockdown. Valve's CEO was the most vocal because it looked like MS's end game would be to crush steam.

Microsoft didn't help matters with the 99 dollars developer fee - not high per se but in an existing free for all operating, pushbacks would happen.

Microsoft basically said to use this shiny new crippled toy, you must use our store and pay money.

Microsoft also fanned the fire when they announced that only one metro browser was allowed. That is you could only use the metro browser of your default desktop browser. Others would be disabled

For me as a user I hated/hate, UWP, metro and all it's incarnations because:

UWP apps are slower than regular apps. In the early days they crashed a lot. They wasted desktop real estate with too much whitespace. Initially they were not resizable like normal windows application. Oh... The hidden settings menu sucked.

Microsoft also consistently undermined the new format by limiting UWP to the latest operating system. Metro apps couldn't run on Windows 7. Most Universal apps made for Windows 10 won't work on Windows 8.1 and lower. Some wouldn't even work on some Windows 10 versions.

For developers, having to maintain multiple versions written with different API's for "one operating system" is crazy.

UWP apps are basically unusable without mouse or touch screen. Almost all the shortcuts we know and love don't work.

This flat UI nonsense that makes it difficult for users to detect the active menu or even clickable items was started by Microsoft with windows 8. Google and Apple take the credit cos Microsoft failed with mobile.

Re: Playing around with the Fuchsia operating system

#154

Post by modeless »

fragmede wrote: post #151
modeless wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard this kind of argument a lot and it's getting tiresome when we just keep seeing the same old preventable bugs being a problem time and time again. Yes, a kernel written in a safe language will still have security bugs. But it would absolutely have a very large positive impact. And any problems with safe languages can be worked around with a bit of imagination, especially with the level of effort already req…

If you turn off all the safety checks, is Rust still safe? It seems a microkernel architecture allows for the kernel to be as small as possible, with the scheduler and drivers and everything written in a safe language in user-space. In that case, it is anything other than vanity that says the kernel is better off being written in a "safe" language with all the safeties turned off, compared to a unsafe language?

1. Fuchsia is not a microkernel, according to themselves. [1]

2. You don't have to turn off safety checks in all of the code. Only having to audit the unsafe code is still a huge win. You're vastly overstating the amount of code that can't be safe.

3. Fuchsia has many components outside of the kernel that should have been written in safe languages but weren't.

4. It's funny that you use the word vanity. I think it perfectly describes the attitude that you're smart enough to write a nontrivial project in C/C++ without any of the many classes of preventable bugs that safe languages fix. Or that a few parts of your code requiring unsafe behavior somehow elevate the whole project into an elite class that doesn't need safety.

[1] https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/concepts

Re: Playing around with the Fuchsia operating system

#155

Post by Leherenn »

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!

It started at least 4/5 years ago, Rust 1.0 had just been released.

I don't think it made sense to use Rust back when they started. It wasn't mature enough for such a big project.

Re: Playing around with the Fuchsia operating system

#156

Post by tbodt »

beckler wrote: post #72
adrianmonk wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if this is Google's intention, but I could certainly see Fuchsia being used for IoT devices. IoT devices have a big problem with software updates. The people who make them are primarily interested in selling hardware, not supporting it for the many years it will probably be in your home. (You might replace a smartphone every two years, but how often do you replace a light switch or thermostat?) Google sa…

I don't see that... yet. It sounds like Fuschia doesn't support ARM at the moment, and that would be a crucial first step.

*Fuchsia

Re: Playing around with the Fuchsia operating system

#157

Post by tbodt »

CountSessine wrote: post #148
close04 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe they will move all their devices to their own superior OS Tizen. Or maybe they tried and it did not turn out very well. Google (via the Open Handset Alliance) managed to enforce the current status quo. Manufacturers can't simultaneously ship their own OS like forked versions of Android, or presumably Tizen, and still be allowed to use Google Play Services. It's all-Google or nothing. I don't know whether Tize…

Samsung has 20% of the market and a lot more of the high end market. Going with "not Google" means a lot of users no longer using Google Play Store and services. It most certainly would "affect" Google. It’s a game of chicken and one Samsung can’t win, but Google probably doesn’t want to inflict on them. Look at how well Huawei is doing outside China without google services (they’re dead in the water). Samsung doesn’…

*Fuchsia

Re: Playing around with the Fuchsia operating system

#158

Post by tbodt »

cycloptic wrote: post #149
quicklime wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Android device vendors don't care because either way they will stop updating their kernels after a number of years This one seems like a big problem to me. Maybe the handset manufacturer doesn’t care because they already made their profit, but this pushes the support burden onto app developers (including Google itself) who have to maintain support for these old Android devices that the manufacturers don’t care abou…

I agree that is a real issue. By my point is that the proposed solution is now that Google itself is now going to have to maintain support for old Fuschia devices because the burden is now on them to maintain this stable ABI. How is this going to solve anything compared to just making a support promise about a particular Linux version? Nothing here seems like it would improve for the app developers.

*Fuchsia

Re: Playing around with the Fuchsia operating system

#159

Post by tbodt »

naasking wrote: post #49
modeless wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard this kind of argument a lot and it's getting tiresome when we just keep seeing the same old preventable bugs being a problem time and time again. Yes, a kernel written in a safe language will still have security bugs. But it would absolutely have a very large positive impact. And any problems with safe languages can be worked around with a bit of imagination, especially with the level of effort already req…

Rust would help with drivers, not so much with the kernel itself. Drivers run in user space in Fuschia, so you should be able to use any language you want.

*Fuchsia

Re: Playing around with the Fuchsia operating system

#160

Post by [deleted] »

monadic2 wrote: post #133
moron4hire wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just described UWP apps on Windows 10. Developers flat out rejected it because of the smartphone-like sandboxing.

Can you elaborate? What is UWP and why did devs not like it? All the critique i see with a quick google comes from game devs.

[deleted]
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