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GNU/Hurd in 2010

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Re: GNU/Hurd in 2010

#31

Post by mahmud »

rbanffy wrote: post #21
j_baker wrote: post #5

I always felt that GNU continued Hurd development out of spite that no one would call Linux GNU/Linux.

No. It continued because Hurd is very elegant and, for some people, this matters a lot. I'd love to run GNU/Hurd as my main OS, but, right now, that's not feasible. Right now, you can reasonably choose between a Unix workalike that's GPL'ed, a BSD-flavour of Unix that's BSD'ed, the bastard child of VMS and a very elegant OS that's only sold bundled with fairly ordinary x86 PCs inside very elegant exteriors.

that "very elegant OS" is actually itself the bastard child of BSD Unix and Mach, dipped in unicorn giggles and butterfly kisses.

Re: GNU/Hurd in 2010

#32

Post by SwellJoe »

mahmud wrote: post #31
rbanffy wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. It continued because Hurd is very elegant and, for some people, this matters a lot. I'd love to run GNU/Hurd as my main OS, but, right now, that's not feasible. Right now, you can reasonably choose between a Unix workalike that's GPL'ed, a BSD-flavour of Unix that's BSD'ed, the bastard child of VMS and a very elegant OS that's only sold bundled with fairly ordinary x86 PCs inside very elegant exteriors.

that "very elegant OS" is actually itself the bastard child of BSD Unix and Mach, dipped in unicorn giggles and butterfly kisses.

I didn't know unicorns were involved. Count me in!

Re: GNU/Hurd in 2010

#33

Post by rbanffy »

mahmud wrote: post #31
rbanffy wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. It continued because Hurd is very elegant and, for some people, this matters a lot. I'd love to run GNU/Hurd as my main OS, but, right now, that's not feasible. Right now, you can reasonably choose between a Unix workalike that's GPL'ed, a BSD-flavour of Unix that's BSD'ed, the bastard child of VMS and a very elegant OS that's only sold bundled with fairly ordinary x86 PCs inside very elegant exteriors.

that "very elegant OS" is actually itself the bastard child of BSD Unix and Mach, dipped in unicorn giggles and butterfly kisses.

Having a Unix layer on top of Mach is very convenient from an application development point of view. This made the Unix userland able to run on the NeXT's OS we currently call OSX.

I am not sure about the relationship between NeXT's OS and OSF/1, but OSF/1 shared the BSD-on-Mach nature with it.

Re: GNU/Hurd in 2010

#34

Post by rmc »

terhechte wrote: post #7

Did someone ever analyze the 20year Hurd-History and write a book about it? I wonder what were the main factors that contributed to its (incredibly) slow development. Maybe there're lessons to learn here, there have to be. Edit: Typo, 20 years, not 27

Once Linux became popular and useable, there wassup de.and for a floss kernel.

Re: GNU/Hurd in 2010

#35

Post by serichsen »

tzs wrote: post #16

It's interesting to look at the advantages they list, and see (1) which are also covered by Linux, (2) which are not covered by Linux but are of questionable usefulness, and (3) which are not covered by Linux and are useful--and then to see if these could be brought to Linux reasonably. It's free software, so anybody can use, modify, and redistribute it under the terms of the ?GNU General Public License (GPL). Linux…

Note that Minix has a microkernel, too.

Look up the Tanenbaum vs. Linus debate on the subject of monolithic vs. microkernels.

Re: GNU/Hurd in 2010

#37

Post by wladimir »

Aegean wrote: post #20

The only reason GNU/Hurd is still a popular subject of discussion is its historical fame. There is no concrete reasoning behind this project anymore as to why it may find adoption. It is not easy to write operating systems in the first place. Adoption is even harder today because the subject is very well explored and the solution has become a commodity.

I don't agree. With virtualisation systems such as Xen it has become easier to use specific operating systems for specific tasks, either as hypervisor or VM.

If the GNU Hurd people can prove that, due to its modularity, it is really that more secure than current OS approaches, I can certainly see some uses.

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