Asterinas: A new Linux-compatible kernel project

Post by jpc0 » Fri, Jun 20, 2025, 4:58 PM UTC

jitl wrote: post #43

weinzierl wrote: post #24

This is an interesting approach, and I wish it will succeed. I am still skeptical. In the late 90s or early 2000s Linus was interviewed on TV and what he said stuck with me to this day. When asked about competitors he roughly said: No one likes writing device drivers and as long no one young and hungry comes along who is good at writing device drivers I am save. I think he was already well aware at that time that kee…

On the other hand, running on real hardware is less important if none of your hardware is real! 98% of Linux I interact with is running virtualized: on my desktop/laptop systems it’s either Virtualbox full-screened so I can use Windows for drivers, or a headless VM managed by Docker.app on my Mac. All my employer’s production workloads are AWS virtual machines. My only Linux bare metal hardware is a home server, whic…

Post by KingLancelot » Fri, Jun 20, 2025, 5:29 PM UTC

rcxdude wrote: post #42

reactordev wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the future. Hardware has already standardized more towards USB HID than in previous decades, Linus interview included. When AI can develop these device drivers based on just probing the HID info, we’ll be on Cloud9. Because maybe then, we’ll get the year of the Linux desktop.

Such standard interfaces are rarely the problem, though there is often a headache of dealing with the pile of 'quirky' hardware that just so happens to work well enough with exactly what windows happens to do. The pain point is all the things that aren't that. Nonstandard, niche hardware which maybe has a few thousand users, or big and complex interfaces like graphics cards which are basically whole OSs on their own.

Post by GardenLetter27 » Fri, Jun 20, 2025, 6:29 PM UTC

tatetian16 wrote: post #20

lifty wrote: post #14

This is an awesome effort, thank you, knowing that one of the authors is in the thread. How far is this from usability, at least in some reduced context? Would love to be able to build server images based on this kernel and play around with it.

As a relatively new kernel, Asterinas still has a lot of rough edges for general-purpose use. That said, if the goal is to run targeted, real-world services efficiently and reliably, the gap is not that large—I believe we can reach that milestone within a year. We're actively implementing key features like Linux namespaces and cgroups, and we're also working on the first Asterinas-based distribution. Our initial focu…

Post by pjmlp » Fri, Jun 20, 2025, 6:53 PM UTC

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #60

pjmlp wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The supposed performance gains from monolithic kernel being wasted on features that mimic microkernel features.

> The supposed performance gains from monolithic kernel being wasted on features that mimic microkernel features. So two things: 1. Containers don't have a meaningful performance hit. (They are semi-frequently used with things that can have a perf hit, like overlay filesystems, but this is generally easy to skip when it matters.) 2. I don't think containers meaningfully mimic microkernel features. If I run everything…

Post by pxc » Fri, Jun 20, 2025, 7:38 PM UTC

weinzierl wrote: post #24

This is an interesting approach, and I wish it will succeed. I am still skeptical. In the late 90s or early 2000s Linus was interviewed on TV and what he said stuck with me to this day. When asked about competitors he roughly said: No one likes writing device drivers and as long no one young and hungry comes along who is good at writing device drivers I am save. I think he was already well aware at that time that kee…