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A Debian GNU/Hurd snapshot

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Re: A Debian GNU/Hurd snapshot

#11

Post by papsosouid »

rookieMP wrote: post #7

A lot of people will point and laugh at HURD, calling it a really sad project or whatever. Why? Considering the small number of developers, it has come along spectacularly. Over time, HURD has been improving at a decently consistent rate. I remember a time when it was nearly impossible to get it running even on QEMU. God damn people, sure it's missing features; but those features don't inhibit it running. I, for one,…

Why? Because in the time HURD has sat around trying to figure out whose code to use and call HURD, other people have actually written useful kernels. Minix for example.

Re: A Debian GNU/Hurd snapshot

#12

Post by greenlakejake »

mindstab wrote: post #2

As time goes on GNU HURD becomes sadder and sadder :/ They can't even seem to be consistently settled on their basics like what micro kernel they are using https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurd#Other_microkernels In the 2000s they experimented with 3 other micro kernels, all of which went "no where". Over half a decade spending their limited dev resources on work that ultimately went no where since they are still appare…

"In years past, Richard Stallman was quoted as saying that Linux was a good option to use while the Hurd was still incomplete"

Linux will remain a good option for a long time.

Re: A Debian GNU/Hurd snapshot

#13

Post by rookieMP »

papsosouid wrote: post #11
rookieMP wrote: post #7

A lot of people will point and laugh at HURD, calling it a really sad project or whatever. Why? Considering the small number of developers, it has come along spectacularly. Over time, HURD has been improving at a decently consistent rate. I remember a time when it was nearly impossible to get it running even on QEMU. God damn people, sure it's missing features; but those features don't inhibit it running. I, for one,…

Why? Because in the time HURD has sat around trying to figure out whose code to use and call HURD, other people have actually written useful kernels. Minix for example.

Minix was first released in 87, three years before development on HURD even began.

Yeah, okay, that was just nitpicking. But they're not doing that anymore, so why bother complaining about it anymore? Sure, it's not up to snuff yet, but perhaps it will be decently soon. Development on HURD has really surged in the past year or two, I'd like to say.

Re: A Debian GNU/Hurd snapshot

#14

Post by InclinedPlane »

rookieMP wrote: post #7

A lot of people will point and laugh at HURD, calling it a really sad project or whatever. Why? Considering the small number of developers, it has come along spectacularly. Over time, HURD has been improving at a decently consistent rate. I remember a time when it was nearly impossible to get it running even on QEMU. God damn people, sure it's missing features; but those features don't inhibit it running. I, for one,…

Are you joking?

Linux is named after a guy, why? Because it started out as a single person project. So did many other major open source projects. The reason why so few people still work on HURD is because it's not seen as very promising or interesting or practical.

Re: A Debian GNU/Hurd snapshot

#15

Post by michaelhoffman »

jared314 wrote: post #4
mindstab wrote: post #2

As time goes on GNU HURD becomes sadder and sadder :/ They can't even seem to be consistently settled on their basics like what micro kernel they are using https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurd#Other_microkernels In the 2000s they experimented with 3 other micro kernels, all of which went "no where". Over half a decade spending their limited dev resources on work that ultimately went no where since they are still appare…

I wonder what could be done to actually turn the project around. There are articles on HN almost everyday about small project management this and agile that. What might actually help this project?

The first thing they would need is a compelling reason for people to spend their time on the project.

Re: A Debian GNU/Hurd snapshot

#16

Post by rookieMP »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #14
rookieMP wrote: post #7

A lot of people will point and laugh at HURD, calling it a really sad project or whatever. Why? Considering the small number of developers, it has come along spectacularly. Over time, HURD has been improving at a decently consistent rate. I remember a time when it was nearly impossible to get it running even on QEMU. God damn people, sure it's missing features; but those features don't inhibit it running. I, for one,…

Are you joking? Linux is named after a guy, why? Because it started out as a single person project. So did many other major open source projects. The reason why so few people still work on HURD is because it's not seen as very promising or interesting or practical.

Oh right, and Linus Torvalds wrote all the millions of lines of code that comprise the Linux kernel. Sure it started out as a single person project, but it certainly didn't stay that way. One of the reasons development on Linux progresses so quickly is because of the vast number of developers.

HURD, to contrast, had a small base initially and has remained that way.

Re: A Debian GNU/Hurd snapshot

#17

Post by lelf »

I tried it long time ago. And it's something magical about the fact that you can have one system (GNU/Linux) and don't have any binaries for other (GNU/Hurd), only sources for mach, hurd, gcc, glibc and can piece by piece (cross-)compile everything and get a working system (with gcc! you compile it by cross-gcc which you compile from your native gcc).

And yes, /dev/null is just translator (think of it as mount point), user-space program discarding stdin. Oh, and / is just a translator giving access to /dev/hdX

Re: A Debian GNU/Hurd snapshot

#18

Post by papsosouid »

rookieMP wrote: post #13
papsosouid wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Because in the time HURD has sat around trying to figure out whose code to use and call HURD, other people have actually written useful kernels. Minix for example.

Minix was first released in 87, three years before development on HURD even began. Yeah, okay, that was just nitpicking. But they're not doing that anymore, so why bother complaining about it anymore? Sure, it's not up to snuff yet, but perhaps it will be decently soon. Development on HURD has really surged in the past year or two, I'd like to say.

>Minix was first released in 87, three years before development on HURD even began.

Minix wasn't an attempt at a production kernel in 1987. Minix 1 and Minix 2 were purely for teaching. Minix 3 was a completely new project, and wasn't started until 2005.

>but perhaps it will be decently soon

The history of the project and its current state suggest that is unlikely.

>Development on HURD has really surged in the past year or two, I'd like to say.

You might very well like to say that, but that doesn't mean it is true. There are no competent systems programmers working for/with GNU, it is highly unlikely that the random assortment of people chosen for their politics rather than their skillset will be able to turn the longest festering mess of code ever into a production ready kernel.

Re: A Debian GNU/Hurd snapshot

#19

Post by lelf »

cwzwarich wrote: post #9
strictfp wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember that microkernels aren't just trying to achieve modularity - they also take a stab at robustness by failure recovery. This is IMO doomed to fail - you are much better off trying to achieve robustness by correctness. Monolithic kernels focus more on correctness and therefore progress much faster.

Most of the kernels that try very hard to achieve correctness (in the embedded / real-time space that would be used in military or aerospace applications) are microkernels. Microkernels have a smaller number of primitives that are more orthogonal, so they are easier to implement correctly and audit them, and you get some amount of preemptibility for free. Also, as far as I know, the only kernel that has been proven c…

proven correct with a mechanically verifiable proof is an L4 variant

seL4, which is microkernel of course

http://www.sigops.org/sosp/sosp09/papers/klein-sosp09.pdf

Re: A Debian GNU/Hurd snapshot

#20

Post by [deleted] »

rookieMP wrote: post #16
InclinedPlane wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you joking? Linux is named after a guy, why? Because it started out as a single person project. So did many other major open source projects. The reason why so few people still work on HURD is because it's not seen as very promising or interesting or practical.

Oh right, and Linus Torvalds wrote all the millions of lines of code that comprise the Linux kernel. Sure it started out as a single person project, but it certainly didn't stay that way. One of the reasons development on Linux progresses so quickly is because of the vast number of developers. HURD, to contrast, had a small base initially and has remained that way.

[deleted]
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