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macOS extensions are moving away from the kernel

eclecticlight.co

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Re: macOS extensions are moving away from the kernel

#2

Post by nemothekid »

This article does a good job of explaining how kernel extensions worked under Intel and how they will work under M1, and the blessed replacement for kernel extensions by Apple under M1. What it's missing, and what I assume everyone's questions is: Are the capabilities of Apple's user-level APIs sufficient to replace most legitimate uses of kernel extensions?

Re: macOS extensions are moving away from the kernel

#3

Post by pjmlp »

nemothekid wrote: post #2

This article does a good job of explaining how kernel extensions worked under Intel and how they will work under M1, and the blessed replacement for kernel extensions by Apple under M1. What it's missing, and what I assume everyone's questions is: Are the capabilities of Apple's user-level APIs sufficient to replace most legitimate uses of kernel extensions?

The roadmap as presented by Apple at WWDC 2019 was that after an userspace replacement for a kernel subsystem gets presented, there is one year deprecation until it gets removed from the kernel on the following OS release.

So there is one year to try out what might still be missing and give respective feedback.

The long term roadmap is that macOS will eventually be much more microkernel like.

Re: macOS extensions are moving away from the kernel

#4

Post by cpach »

pjmlp wrote: post #3
nemothekid wrote: post #2

This article does a good job of explaining how kernel extensions worked under Intel and how they will work under M1, and the blessed replacement for kernel extensions by Apple under M1. What it's missing, and what I assume everyone's questions is: Are the capabilities of Apple's user-level APIs sufficient to replace most legitimate uses of kernel extensions?

The roadmap as presented by Apple at WWDC 2019 was that after an userspace replacement for a kernel subsystem gets presented, there is one year deprecation until it gets removed from the kernel on the following OS release. So there is one year to try out what might still be missing and give respective feedback. The long term roadmap is that macOS will eventually be much more microkernel like.

Cool! Very interesting development given how bad reputation microkernels had for a while. (I’m thinking of Linux vs Minix/Hurd.)

Re: macOS extensions are moving away from the kernel

#5

Post by kzrdude »

cpach wrote: post #4
pjmlp wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The roadmap as presented by Apple at WWDC 2019 was that after an userspace replacement for a kernel subsystem gets presented, there is one year deprecation until it gets removed from the kernel on the following OS release. So there is one year to try out what might still be missing and give respective feedback. The long term roadmap is that macOS will eventually be much more microkernel like.

Cool! Very interesting development given how bad reputation microkernels had for a while. (I’m thinking of Linux vs Minix/Hurd.)

macOS (Mac OS X lineage) was always based on mach (a microkernel) which made it a hybrid kernel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XNU

Re: macOS extensions are moving away from the kernel

#6

Post by zibzab »

cpach wrote: post #4
pjmlp wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The roadmap as presented by Apple at WWDC 2019 was that after an userspace replacement for a kernel subsystem gets presented, there is one year deprecation until it gets removed from the kernel on the following OS release. So there is one year to try out what might still be missing and give respective feedback. The long term roadmap is that macOS will eventually be much more microkernel like.

Cool! Very interesting development given how bad reputation microkernels had for a while. (I’m thinking of Linux vs Minix/Hurd.)

FYI, Linux userspace drivers were introduced in 2006-2007 and improved multiple times over the years. Some of my filesystem & networking drivers run in usersapce.

The monolithic vs microkernel debate was pretty clueless at times. Core Linux is smaller than dito hurd when configured with similar functionality.

OSX mach has always been a hybrid kernel. In a sense Linux is too but you can also configure it as a mostly-monolithic thing, and most seem to prefer that.

Re: macOS extensions are moving away from the kernel

#9

Post by creshal »

zibzab wrote: post #6
cpach wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool! Very interesting development given how bad reputation microkernels had for a while. (I’m thinking of Linux vs Minix/Hurd.)

FYI, Linux userspace drivers were introduced in 2006-2007 and improved multiple times over the years. Some of my filesystem & networking drivers run in usersapce. The monolithic vs microkernel debate was pretty clueless at times. Core Linux is smaller than dito hurd when configured with similar functionality. OSX mach has always been a hybrid kernel. In a sense Linux is too but you can also configure it as a mostly-m…

Some of the userspace drivers are even shared between OSX and Linux, via FUSE.
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