
GNU Hurd 0.5, GNU Mach 1.4, GNU MIG 1.4 released - Tsiolkovsky
http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/news/2013-09-27.html
======
luckydude
OK, I'll nerd out here for a second.

I knew some of the QNX guys,

work:~ call qnx Dan Hildebrandt (QNX) 613-591-0931 x204 (RIP 1998)

That's me using my phone database. Dan was one of the few people who were
allowed to touch the QNX core. It was _tiny_ , it knew that the "micro" in
microkernel meant small. The entire kernel fit in a 4K instruction cache. The
whole thing. Hello people! Micro means small.

For the people out there that understand operating system design, these guys
got it. And they managed to make a distributed kernel that worked. I worked on
an 80286 (yup) with ~10 users logged in and working.

I'll give more details if anyone cares.

All that said, please allow me to vent about Mach. I know nothing about hurd.

Mach was CMU project and it was what happens when you let a bunch of people
who know nothing about the real world write wack on an OS (and a VM system).
It was happening at the same time I was getting a decent education from Uwisc.
So it took me a while to catch up.

I caught up after having worked on a Unix port. I learned a lot, as would any
of you in the same situation. Practice != theory.

I went back to grad school to get a PhD and ran into a class where they were
pushing Mach and I listened for 15 minutes and then I just couldn't take it
any more and stood up and said "it doesn't work like that". The prof and I
went back and forth for a few minutes and then I took over the class and
taught it.

Blah, blah, blah, I haven't really made the case against mach. I have wife and
kids waiting on me, I can come back and try and do better. My view of mach is
that it added nothing to the body of OS work. BSD did - they added networking.
Sun did - they added VM. QNX did - they added a microkernel. Mach - they added
marketing in my opinion and nothing else.

~~~
weland
QNX was beautiful. I worked with it for very little time, but I loved it.
Elegant and well-thought. I also share your feelings about Mach.

Please, do continue when you have the time. Cheers!

~~~
luckydude
Just a bit before I hustle out of here to coach hockey all day (don't have
kids unless you want to do the same :)

So Mach's VM was being done around the same time as the SunOS 4.0 release
which had Sun's VM system (that implemented mmap() and friends for the first
time) as well as Sun's vnode virtualization of the file system. As a side
effect almost all of the buffer cache vs page cache mess went away (for those
who don't know in the distant past pages were one thing and file system
buffers were another. Ponder that for a minute and tell me what's wrong with
it. Hint: bcopy()).

I was reading all those papers from Joe Moran and Rusty Sandberg and Steve
Kleiman; I really really wanted to work at Sun, to me it was the Bell Labs of
the day, so I was slurping in everything I could find to read and think about.

I read the Mach papers and later had a chance to wander through the source
code. The best way I can say it quickly is that with some things you don't get
it and you wander around for a while and eventually the fog clears and you see
the architecture. Sun's stuff was like that, when it snapped into focus it was
a thing of beauty. The Mach stuff never snapped into focus, for me. Maybe
someone else can see how awesome it is but all I saw was a mess. Yeah, it
worked, but so do a lot of messes. The good stuff is architected in a way that
leads you to respect and maintain the architecture.

Gotta run, here is betting Bryan C will find this thread and add to it :)

~~~
weland
Thanks! Enjoy the hockey games!

------
vezzy-fnord
Will wait for an update on Debian GNU/Hurd.

~~~
agumonkey
The arch hurd team recently posted a message saying they were in stealth mode,
very busy with their lives but not idle, I hope this will give them thirst to
come back on a new release.

------
hereonbusiness
I'm actually curios, is this used in production on a mid/large scale anywhere
?

First hand experiences?

~~~
saurik
If someone answers this in the positive (which I doubt), I'd like to tack on
the further question "what was so amazing about this software that made you
start using it long enough ago, while it was so far in its very slow to come
to fruition infancy, that by the time the software reached 0.5 you already had
a large scale deployment" ;P.

------
wesleyac
Why, GNU, Why did you have to make a kernel?

Ok, I get that the GNU has always wanted to make an OS that they can get
credit for (GNU/Linux folks, I'm looking at you), but still.

I suppose that they can make the case for making a non-monolithic kernel, but
that doesn't seem necessary to me.

I feel like all the years of dev work on HURD could have been better spent on
other projects, but it's not my time :(

Thoughts?

~~~
Ixiaus
Not GNU projects but relevant and different kernels / operating systems:

[http://www.barrelfish.org/](http://www.barrelfish.org/)

[https://github.com/xomboverlord/xomb](https://github.com/xomboverlord/xomb)

[http://www.returninfinity.com/baremetal.html](http://www.returninfinity.com/baremetal.html)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SeL4](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SeL4)

I don't consider any of these to be a waste of time in the least; some move
quicker than others but ultimately every one of these projects is advancing
the state of the art and we may one day see the fruit of this difficult type
of work (building kernels from scratch).

~~~
axaxs
Don't forget templeos...as trippy as it is.

~~~
symisc_devel
Absolutely, TempleOS is an amazing piece of work including its programming
language (Holy C).

~~~
axaxs
Completely agreed. I wonder if it will ever 'leave' his hands, as it really is
a nice language, a well thought out C improvement (for the uninitiated -
[http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Doc/HolyC.html](http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Doc/HolyC.html)
). I'm very versed with who the creator is, and his personality, but honestly
think he may be one of the smartest people in the field. It's a shame more
people don't take him seriously(and to their point, I don't always blame
them).

~~~
supergauntlet
People tend to not take crazy people seriously. That's kinda sad because the
guy is indeed one of the smartest people in the field.

I just hope he gets some help and is able to work his issues out.

------
mvrck
never knew this was still in developement, It was a great idea but got little
attention against linux like some other projects including Haiku

