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Interview with Andreas Kling of Serenity OS (2022)

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Re: Interview with Andreas Kling of Serenity OS (2022)

#101

Post by user8501 »

jasode wrote: post #14
shiroiuma wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this "hacky"? I've long wondered why databases need to be on filesystems, other than simply convenience. If you think about it, a filesystem is, itself, basically a database (not a relational one of course). So it seems like you could improve performance a lot by eliminating the filesystem layer and going straight to direct disk access. Also, how this would be done would probably change depending on whether yo…

>I've long wondered why databases need to be on filesystems, other than simply convenience. [...]So it seems like you could improve performance a lot by eliminating the filesystem layer and going straight to direct disk access. Both Oracle RDBMS and older versions of Microsoft SQL Server had the option to use "raw disk devices" / "raw partitions" instead of the filesystem. It had some obvious justifications such as a…

SQLite essentially achieves this as well by keeping the entire database in one file. It’s even faster than the filesystem in some cases: https://www.sqlite.org/fasterthanfs.html

Re: Interview with Andreas Kling of Serenity OS (2022)

#102

Post by rujkking »

What I want is to be free of the desktop metaphor and the notion my computer is an office job data entry terminal only.

Am working on a GPU accelerated application to replace Gnome. Currently boots to a blank 3D canvas, like opening a new Blender project. Am working on using AI and a planner system to generate a viable user interface given user prompt. Users fill out the plan with possible states and relevant actions, go back and forth with AI to get there.

All runs locally and is loaded by x11 instead of the usual desktop options.

Re: Interview with Andreas Kling of Serenity OS (2022)

#103

Post by vilunov »

rujkking wrote: post #94
cedws wrote: post #75

Serenity is one of the only recent OS projects that I think has any potential. It's a very high velocity, high quality project and I think that's down to the community culture Andreas has fostered. They aren't a load of fuddy-duddies who insist on using mailing lists and IRC. Nobody wants to collaborate with a load of grumpy greybeards.

You think a throw back Win 95 clones with UNIX-like internals is what modern users want? We’ve moved on from “back in my day, the 80s…” computer UI nostalgia to 90s it seems. 10 more years we’ll have Mac OSX Snow Leopard clone project get abandoned (have had a lot of young Millennials and older GenZ hackers talk it up at me as peak computing) Just because they’re not grumpy doesn’t mean they aren’t nostalgia driven i…

We haven't improved much since Win 95 in terms of desktop OS UI/UX. Could you remember any substantial UI improvements between Win 95 and Win 11? Local search, improved UAC and a shitload of ads.

Re: Interview with Andreas Kling of Serenity OS (2022)

#104

Post by bleachedsleet »

cedws wrote: post #75

Serenity is one of the only recent OS projects that I think has any potential. It's a very high velocity, high quality project and I think that's down to the community culture Andreas has fostered. They aren't a load of fuddy-duddies who insist on using mailing lists and IRC. Nobody wants to collaborate with a load of grumpy greybeards.

We need more optimism in technology, more looking forward and inspiring the next generation to leave their mark; not pining for a past that’s already been here.

Nobody younger than an older millennial who grew up learning computers via Windows 95 has any interest in “retvrning” to this ethos of computing. Hell, I just described myself and even I could care less about this project other than a passing “huh that’s kinda neat” which is a rather tepid response proportional to the work that has been invested here.

There are far more interesting projects rethinking the OS right now that are actually trying their hand at unique architectures. This is just an homage to nostalgia (a technically impressive one, but still nothing inspiring here). The saddest part to me is I’m not sure the graybeards on HN will ever really get that.

Re: Interview with Andreas Kling of Serenity OS (2022)

#105

Post by cedws »

rujkking wrote: post #94
cedws wrote: post #75

Serenity is one of the only recent OS projects that I think has any potential. It's a very high velocity, high quality project and I think that's down to the community culture Andreas has fostered. They aren't a load of fuddy-duddies who insist on using mailing lists and IRC. Nobody wants to collaborate with a load of grumpy greybeards.

You think a throw back Win 95 clones with UNIX-like internals is what modern users want? We’ve moved on from “back in my day, the 80s…” computer UI nostalgia to 90s it seems. 10 more years we’ll have Mac OSX Snow Leopard clone project get abandoned (have had a lot of young Millennials and older GenZ hackers talk it up at me as peak computing) Just because they’re not grumpy doesn’t mean they aren’t nostalgia driven i…

>You think a throw back Win 95 clones with UNIX-like internals is what modern users want?

They aren't building it for "modern users", they're building it for fun.

To build a usable operating system you need manpower. To get manpower you need money or you need to build a community around an interesting project that people will work on for free. Andreas has managed to do both of these things.

Serenity is not just another UNIX clone, it's a unique project with the idea of doing everything from scratch. The project uses modern tools like GitHub and Discord so there's a larger pool of people willing to join the project. Had it been all on mailing lists it would be nowhere near what it is today.

Re: Interview with Andreas Kling of Serenity OS (2022)

#106

Post by jwells89 »

0xEF wrote: post #8

For those looking to try their hand at building an OS, there's Linux From Scratch. https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/ I failed tremendously, but I had a lot of incorrect ideas about what makes an operating system go. The learning experience was worth it, though.

Have known about LFS for a long time but never messed with it. Would it be suitable for someone who’s not quite up to the task of writing an OS from scratch, but has higher level ideas (e.g. filesystem arrangement/structure) they want to play with?

Re: Interview with Andreas Kling of Serenity OS (2022)

#107

Post by p_l »

jerrygenser wrote: post #52
drannex wrote: post #50

Figured I would write this here, but I would scratch the concept of a file system and replace it with a database.

Isn't that how z/os from IBM works? The API is a SQL api into files I think

You're mixing up IBM z (mainframes, z/OS) with IBM i (AS/400).

The latter has a single level storage system where disks and memory are part of single address space, and a variant of DB2 database is part of core OS thus making it common to use SQL for many things people wouldn't expect.

Re: Interview with Andreas Kling of Serenity OS (2022)

#108

Post by thequux »

jerrygenser wrote: post #52
drannex wrote: post #50

Figured I would write this here, but I would scratch the concept of a file system and replace it with a database.

Isn't that how z/os from IBM works? The API is a SQL api into files I think

Z doesn't really have files or databases, but rather an emulation of variable-length records contained within a relatively fixed allocation on disk. Mainframe DASDs also have a much richer interface than just read/write a given block; for example, you can scan for records within a track that have a given prefix

Re: Interview with Andreas Kling of Serenity OS (2022)

#109

Post by gjvc »

Get some inspiration from something like https://www.haiku-os.org/ https://www.vitanuova.com/inferno/ https://9front.org/ or even https://vmssoftware.com/ and consider how one might re-imagine compute provisioning to scale across hardware but also provide services for workstation use.

https://osdev.org/ is an excellent starting point, and if you start to write code to sketch out the components, it's surprising how many features are required. (Not as monumental as writing a database, but nevertheless surprising.)

Going in other directions, consider how Smalltalk, and the Lively Kernel do things.

Gaze in wonder at the power of inertia, and network effects.

Other operating systems are available.

Re: Interview with Andreas Kling of Serenity OS (2022)

#110

Post by gjvc »

skizm wrote: post #89

How does one get started on a toy OS? I don’t mean like concepts, but is there like a minimum viable OS .c file somewhere I can look at, with instructions for how to run it on “bare metal”? I assume I need a bootloader of some kind first? I’m just totally unsure where I’d even begin in a practical sense.

https://www.osdev.org
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