A Look into CBL-Mariner, Microsoft’s Internal Linux Distribution • Hacker News Board

Re: A Look into CBL-Mariner, Microsoft’s Internal Linux Distribution

#111

Post by marcodiego » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 11:21 PM UTC

VortexDream wrote: post #85

marcodiego wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this story that windows drivers work forever is a rosy tinted view of the world. Many drivers (my ltc scanner) stopped working working from win9x to xp. I saw an USB projector driver break when a system was updated from win 7 to 8. The same device worked as a fb device out of the box on my rockpi4. And windows drivers are platfrom dependent, the same driver will nit work on 32/64 systems or arm/x86. Linux is enti…

I recently installed XP drivers on a Windows 10 system. Worked flawlessly, even though officially this wasn't supported. 9x to XP/Vista is the last breaking change we've seen and that was over 15 years ago. It's quite impressive actually.

I've got an Asus CP120 USB mini projector. When you plug it on a windows machine it presents itself as a mass storage device with the windows 7 (or xp, I don't remember) driver on it. Last time I tested, it didn't worked out of the box on a windows 10 machine; it would probably work if drivers were downloaded and installed, but I didn't bother.

On my rockpi4, I simply plugged it and instantly I've got a terminal on my wall. It is an ARM machine. That's the HUGE advantage of having a driver in the kernel: it will work on every architecture the code can compile. That was just the same experience with my usb wifi dongle, with my wacom tablet, with an epson multifunctional (I had to apt-get install escpr, but it is a single command), samsung printers... Some of these drivers are in user-space and not in the kernel, but it worked flawlessly in more than a single arch. That is impressive.

But I do admit I envy the number of drivers for desktop gadgets that are compatible with windows. Of course, binary drivers are only interesting you use a single arch.

Re: A Look into CBL-Mariner, Microsoft’s Internal Linux Distribution

#112

Post by marcodiego » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 11:27 PM UTC

ubermonkey wrote: post #100

vermilingua wrote: post #35

A MS dev writing a blog on building MS’ own distro of Linux on his _Macbook_ must have Ballmer sweating bullets.

Fortunately, nobody has to care what Ballmer thinks anymore. IMO he, even moreso than BillG, was the animus behind the insanely cultish POV that MSFT had for a long, long time. As recently as 2009, working there led otherwise smart people to say really dumb things for, I guess, political reasons. I'm in the project management space. We have a product that compliments Project Server, and early on we did lots of joint…

> ALL OF THIS is post-Ballmer.

All of this is post losing the top position. It not possible to infer that the behavior won't be the same if the get to the top again.

Re: A Look into CBL-Mariner, Microsoft’s Internal Linux Distribution

#113

Post by Cipater » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 4:22 AM UTC

bregma wrote: post #69

paavohtl wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you go out out of your way to disable code signing using the terminal & a root account, macOS will only run code signed by an Apple issued certificate [1]. It will also phone home [2] every time a binary is ran for the first time. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatekeeper_(macOS) [2] https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/391399

I had an overnight update install itself on my sole Windows machine the other night. When it rebooted it refused to let me use my own computer until I obtained direct permission from Microsoft giving them my email address. Once I was past that lock it told me "the computer is all yours now" as if it hadn't been earlier. Does Apple completely deny your use of your own hardware like this until you submit? Asking becaus…

> I had an overnight update install itself on my sole Windows machine the other night. When it rebooted it refused to let me use my own computer until I obtained direct permission from Microsoft giving them my email address.

This is not something that Windows does. Ever.

What do you mean by "obtained direct permission from Microsoft giving them my email address"? You're clearly not talking about logging into a Microsoft account so I'm struggling to understand what you're referring to.

Re: A Look into CBL-Mariner, Microsoft’s Internal Linux Distribution

#114

Post by sterlind » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 6:42 AM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #60

ThrowawayB7 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ballmer was forced out of MS 8 years ago, doubt he cares. And anyway, IIRC, it would've been Sinofsky and co. trying to squash anything that threatened the Windows division's power.

Sinofsky and co. are also to blame for Longhorn sabotage of using .NET, and most likely trying to bring Midori stuff into Windows. Now Project Reunion, sorry Windows 11, is trying to fix the path started with Windows 8.

what was wrong with Midori? I wasn't on the team but I played around with it, and thought that the architecture was absolutely beautiful. It's a tragedy that it wasn't open-source. I understand that there wasn't much appetite towards "replacing Windows" when we were losing ground fast to mobile, but it's a loss to the academic community at least.

Re: A Look into CBL-Mariner, Microsoft’s Internal Linux Distribution

#115

Post by sterlind » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 6:50 AM UTC

beagle3 wrote: post #53

michrassena wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never understood the criticism of the registry. The only times I've ever had an issue with it were when there were RAM or disk problems with the computer. On Windows there's nothing at all stopping developers of standard Windows applications from implementing their own config files and many do.

1. Most of the programs put things all over the place. If you install software and use it for a while, you may find lots of keys in lots of places, all subtly affecting something. It’s technically the fault of the program, not the registry. But culture and ecosystems matter, and by-and-large, Config in files is usually much more concentrated. 2. Related to (1), it is very hard to just move settings from one machine t…

it's nicer using PowerShell. `cd hklm:\` and bob's your uncle.

Re: A Look into CBL-Mariner, Microsoft’s Internal Linux Distribution

#116

Post by pjmlp » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 7:49 AM UTC

sterlind wrote: post #114

pjmlp wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sinofsky and co. are also to blame for Longhorn sabotage of using .NET, and most likely trying to bring Midori stuff into Windows. Now Project Reunion, sorry Windows 11, is trying to fix the path started with Windows 8.

what was wrong with Midori? I wasn't on the team but I played around with it, and thought that the architecture was absolutely beautiful. It's a tragedy that it wasn't open-source. I understand that there wasn't much appetite towards "replacing Windows" when we were losing ground fast to mobile, but it's a loss to the academic community at least.

Politcal feuds if you read between the lines of statements like "The project included novel “cultural” approaches too, being 100% developers and very code-focused, looking more like the Microsoft of today and hopefully tomorrow, than it did the Microsoft of 8 years ago when the project began.".

Joe Duffy has similar remarks on his posts and post morten sessions done about the project.

Re: A Look into CBL-Mariner, Microsoft’s Internal Linux Distribution

#117

Post by disgruntledphd2 » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 11:15 AM UTC

ubermonkey wrote: post #103

jorvi wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't edit my comment so I'll just put this here: what is up with HN heavily downvoting factual, useful information? It seems something from the past 1-1.5y or so and it infuriates me to no end.

In aggregate, HN hates Apple. It's that simple, really.

In aggregate, HN loves/hates all of {GOOG, APPL, NFLX, TSLA, MS}.

Except for FB, everyone actually seems to hate them.

Re: A Look into CBL-Mariner, Microsoft’s Internal Linux Distribution

#118

Post by danellis » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

paavohtl wrote: post #62

danellis wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple's authoritarian hold on what software can be run and distributed for that platform What does that mean? I've never needed Apple's permission to run any software on macOS.

Unless you go out out of your way to disable code signing using the terminal & a root account, macOS will only run code signed by an Apple issued certificate [1]. It will also phone home [2] every time a binary is ran for the first time. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatekeeper_(macOS) [2] https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/391399

Right click -> Open -> Open

That's not needing Apple's permission; that's me giving my permission.

Re: A Look into CBL-Mariner, Microsoft’s Internal Linux Distribution

#119

Post by tenebrisalietum » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 6:57 PM UTC

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #21

dboreham wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Registry never made much sense on the local system: just use the filesystem. I assume there was once a plan to use it in a networked fashion. But Active Directory replaced it for that purpose.

The filesystem isn't inherently bad, but the lack of a standard config format, location, and APIs is quite terrible. There's no reason a thousand programs should have a thousand different ways to be configured, it's just a legacy of poor design with no standardization.

It's not poor design because it wasn't really designed in the first place...because it didn't really need to be designed.

There is a standard and it's minimal:

- config files are text files - # indicates a comment

Why standardize further when the types of programs that require config files run an extremely wide gamut? Types of programs can be as diverse as web servers, graphic editors, kernel modules, networking programs, etc. Each are vastly different. I don't need to wait for, worry about, or try to install an updated registry processor that knows about new object types. Better to build it into the program or rely on a library. Why change the entire system of configuration storage just for one new type of program?

And text files are awesome for another reason: With the ability to comment config files you can understand any format - as well as include notes and conveniently have documentation where you need it.

Also: You can't use git or other versioning to backup your registry keys and rollback to previous versions.

Re: A Look into CBL-Mariner, Microsoft’s Internal Linux Distribution

#120

Post by gwbas1c » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 3:19 AM UTC

fanf2 wrote: post #48

gwbas1c wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I like the Mac plist system the best. It just works, and it works so well that you never hear about it because no one ever complains about it!

There are at least three different formats for plist files, and the tools are differently broken depending on the format. There are some really odd cases like terminal colour settings which are stored in the plist as a pickled object, so you have to use the gui to adjust a colour rather than (say) using css syntax.

No settings format can force a programmer to make good decisions. A Windows developer could put a .Net binary serialized object into a blob registry key.