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A dream of an ultimate OS (1995)

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Re: A dream of an ultimate OS (1995)

#141

Post by nerdponx »

fouc wrote: post #110
cryptica wrote: post #92

This sounds like my nightmare operating system. Reusing the same command to operate on very different kinds of objects is a bad idea. A file is very different from a process. A database table is very different from a file. Whenever you try to homogenize operations on different kinds of objects under a single operation name, you inevitably lose flexibility or you have to add a lot of if-then-else statements inside the…

He probably meant having the same internal interface, it would still be doable to have various aliased commands that call the same interface. As for UNIX philosophy of stringing together lots of general purpose commands to get the desired result - the nice thing about that is you don't need to know programming, and it's very convenient for one off scripting.

As for UNIX philosophy of stringing together lots of general purpose commands to get the desired result - the nice thing about that is you don't need to know programming, and it's very convenient for one off scripting.

I beg to differ. It's a workflow by and for programmers, or at least people who think like programmers.

Re: A dream of an ultimate OS (1995)

#142

Post by alexisread »

uncletaco wrote: post #131
augustk wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking about the Oberon operating system, which also already exists.

Same. I've been reading through the book at project oberon and really like reading about the design decisions that went into it. I also think its UI is a great starting point to reason about a touch based IDE.

Already done! AOS was written in 2002, well before Android, and included a multithreaded ZUI by default (along with FAST native module compilation and dynamic linking).

Shame google didn't use it instead of Android, they had to invent Go to get back some of the AOS advantages.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluebottle_OS https://www.research-collection.ethz.ch/handle/20.500.11850/...

Re: A dream of an ultimate OS (1995)

#143

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

nybblesio wrote: post #81
skissane wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or AS/400, which is more or less a SQL database. People keep on saying that, but how really true is it? Many operating systems come with bundled relational databases–e.g. most Linux distributions come with more than one relational database implementation bundled. Does that make Linux "more or less a SQL database"? How deeply integrated is DB2/400 into the OS/400 kernel (or equivalent term, such as "System Licensed…

Long time AS/400 programmer here. I think the confusion arises from mixing the terms "SQL database" and what IBM refers to as the "Single-level Store" [1]. The AS/400 has true orthogonal persistence, much like a database engine . But for a few specialized exceptions, there are no "files" anywhere on an AS/400 like on a typical operating system. Everything is an "object" (yes, extremely overloaded term) and there are…

Interesting history in your [1]:

The thinking at the time was that disk drives would become obsolete, and would be replaced entirely with some form of solid state memory.

What were they smoking? Bubble Memory?

Re: A dream of an ultimate OS (1995)

#144

Post by saghm »

WarDores wrote: post #132
josephagoss wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux is extremely stable as a headless server. We have instances running for years with no issues. That is where Linux's reputation for stability most likely comes from. However as a desktop machine mainly used for media consumption I would take windows over linux any day. No doubt due to poor graphics and audio driver support.

This. The Nvidia drivers are getting there, but they're nowhere close to Windows. Tend to mess with audio, have to restart to use a dual monitor setup (yes, I've googled). It's a real hassle for anything but a basic setup.

> The Nvidia drivers are getting there, but they're nowhere close to Windows...have to restart to use a dual monitor setup

I have a desktop with a discrete Nvidia card, and on Linux I'm easily able to turn on my second monitor after the system is already booted and have it be recognized. I'm super curious to hear what issues you ran into with this sort of thing, because it all works without hassle for me.

Re: A dream of an ultimate OS (1995)

#145

Post by ryanmarsh »

Ryan Marsh @ryan_marsh · Jul 19

Prediction: Linux kernel will be replaced in the Data Center, but its replacement will be developed by the cloud providers. Eventually they’ll need something custom fit to running isolated Node, JVM, and other runtimes as efficiently as possible for Serverless

https://twitter.com/ryan_marsh/status/1152236961660362753

Re: A dream of an ultimate OS (1995)

#146

Post by ccalvert »

screye wrote: post #126
ulkesh wrote: post #119

All I want is an OS that has as few of the weaknesses as possible and all the best things about all the current major operating systems; examples: Flagship gaming support from Windows, Stability and flexibility from Linux, and Design principles from MacOS. Each of those three operating systems have some weaknesses that makes me jump between them quite often. Things like: Forced updates in Windows 10, certain lack of…

> Stability and flexibility from Linux I might have been using linux wrong. Because as a daily driver media consumption device, it has been anything but stable. I suspect it is because it was a laptop with a discrete graphics card, which for some reason completely trips linux up. > Forced updates in Windows 10 I think this has been solved in a recent update

I use Ubuntu Desktop as my primary machine and find it very stable. I use it primarily for development with WebStorm, Atom, VirtualBox, Chromium, Node, and Bash. I rarely play games on it, and my taste in games is not fancy. I handle mail, videos, and writing chores in Chrome and Firefox. I listen to music via Spotify. I use the video card built into my motherboard. The most demanding thing I do with it is record videos that capture what I do on the screen.

Perhaps I am not a typical user, but nonetheless, I rarely have trouble with Linux. Everything just works.

Re: A dream of an ultimate OS (1995)

#147

Post by jayd16 »

S_A_P wrote: post #139

Sounds like a lot of the same goals of Windows Longhorn. Ironically, .NET Core has made alot of the goals they were trying to achieve more achievable now. Trying to build an OS in .NET in 2005 it was too slow, database filesystem has sort of kinda materialized, but not like the design as I remember it. In my view, the ultimate OS is something that is: -Modular -Consistent in API across domains -Skin-able

Its also interesting to see what MS does offer these days. Powershell returns objects so you can actually get at the a Process object with proper typing instead of dealing using sed to parse out some info.

It can be really nice if you have the time to look up the documentation. It doesn't have the WYSIWYG simplicity of files, though.

Re: A dream of an ultimate OS (1995)

#148

Post by screye »

josephagoss wrote: post #130
screye wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stability and flexibility from Linux I might have been using linux wrong. Because as a daily driver media consumption device, it has been anything but stable. I suspect it is because it was a laptop with a discrete graphics card, which for some reason completely trips linux up. > Forced updates in Windows 10 I think this has been solved in a recent update

Linux is extremely stable as a headless server. We have instances running for years with no issues. That is where Linux's reputation for stability most likely comes from. However as a desktop machine mainly used for media consumption I would take windows over linux any day. No doubt due to poor graphics and audio driver support.

> Linux is extremely stable as a headless server.

No question. I love my linux VMs. They are rock solid.

> for media consumption I would take windows over linux any day. No doubt due to poor graphics and audio driver support.

This is me right now. You boiled it down to the essence of it.

Re: A dream of an ultimate OS (1995)

#149

Post by taffer »

tenebrisalietum wrote: post #133

This article doesn't define what an OS is, so it suffers. The layers that sit directly above the hardware need to be simple and efficient (think like OSI layer 1 and 2). Actual hardware beneath this needs to be even simpler so it can focus on what good hardware should be: high performance. For example, having hard drives implement database-like concepts in hardware is bad. Because then you have to change hardware if…

> The user facing layers high up, like the shell, are technically not OS facilities

Even directories, file metadata and caching are too high level and not part of an operating system if you want to go that far.

Re: A dream of an ultimate OS (1995)

#150

Post by jayd16 »

joosters wrote: post #35

Why not to trade a multitude of "custom" database managers for a single well-designed distributed database manager? It's not clear whether the author is arguing that all existing OS data structures should be replaced with a single database system, or if they simply want all OS data to be capable of being queried/updated via a standard database style interface. The former is simply hubris ("I know the perfect data str…

There's another aspect to this that seems almost tangential as well. The author goes into the idea that program imports are directly referenced at the OS level. I suppose this replaces compiled system calls with some kind of foreign key reference?

The author mentions this removes the need for ids, but really it would just be hiding them in a non-serializable way.

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