

Debian GNU/Hurd 2015 released - christianbryant
https://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2015/04/msg00047.html

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fs111
I am writing this comment from a modern graphical webbrowser running on an OS
with the GNU kernel. Who thought this day would ever come?

~~~
smhenderson
I have it installed on a VM but can't seem to get Cinnamon running properly.
Haven't messed with it too much but I was wondering what Desktop/Window
Manager you installed to get to the point where you could use a "modern
graphical web browser"?

I'm not picky and I just kind of randomly picked cinnamon during the install.
Then Tasksel failed so when I restarted that part of the install I left the
Desktop stuff out and everything worked fine. Once booted up I used aptitude
to grab it, updated xinitrc to launch cinnamon-session but when I ran startx
(after fiddling with enabling the hurd console that is) I was greeted with
"Cinnamon Session Failed".

Anyway, I don't have a ton of time to mess with it but I'd like to try some
options and see what I can get working. Any insight you have is appreciated!

Edit: When I said VM above, I mean VirtualBox if that matters...

~~~
fs111
I used fluxbox as the window manager. I simply installed iceweasel, xinit,
xterm and fluxbox, ran startx and had working environment.

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GuamPirate
I'm extremely excited to check this out! I really like the idea of
translators, and low and behold when I log in there's a tutorial on them in
root's home directory! I might switch to this if the ui is bearable enough.

~~~
thomasahle
Link:
[http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd/documentation/translat...](http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd/documentation/translator_primer.html)

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lessthunk
What are your main motivations to use GNU Hurd? Not wanting to troll, fishing
for a link for good background reading

~~~
christianbryant
Advantages:

[http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/advantages.html](http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/advantages.html)

[http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/community/weblogs/ArneBab/t...](http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/community/weblogs/ArneBab/technical-
advantages-of-the-hurd.html)

~~~
bsaul
Just read the advantages, some parts seem a bit old. Touting object oriented
design as something enabling refactoring, whereas the trend for the last
fifteen years has been toward interface-oriented design (with golang being the
most extreme case).

Also, in a world of unikernels and app containers (trending toward the most
static and restricted deployment unit possible), having an os being able to
change its parts while running seems a bit useless.

But, who knows ? maybe we'll see new patterns emerge. That's a fantastic time
for people interested in OSes.

~~~
codeulike
_the Hurd has an object-oriented structure that allows it to evolve without
compromising its design. This structure will help the Hurd undergo major
redesign and modifications without having to be entirely rewritten._

Yeah, good luck with that. OO is great but I'm not sure major redesigns are
any easier in OO compared to any other arch.

Having a completely different OS arch in play does sound good though, perhaps
opening up possibilities we havent realised yet. Perhaps someone should re-
write that 'advantages' page to encompass the massive changes in Software
thinking since it was first written in 2001.

~~~
noblethrasher
> Yeah, good luck with that. OO is great but I'm not sure major redesigns are
> any easier in OO compared to any other arch.

It depends on what they mean by OO. I can't find a source at the moment, but
I've heard of Smalltalk applications that have been running the "same"
incrementally modified image[1] since the 1970s or 1980s.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smalltalk#Image-
based_persisten...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smalltalk#Image-
based_persistence)

------
kriro
Very nice. I'll check it out when I get home. Certainly had this filed as "it
might never happen" and haven't checked on the progress in quite some time. I
hope someone will build an OS course around it eventually. Seems pretty good
for teaching purposes.

Congratulations to everyone involved.

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Joeboy
Does anybody offer a cheap (like $5 a month cheap) VPS you could run GNU/Hurd
on? I am feeling a perverse need to run a website on it. Or maybe that's still
a bad idea at this point?

~~~
0xdeadbeefbabe
Gopher would be less perverse.

------
_pmf_
2015 will be the year of Hurd on the Desktop

~~~
marcosdumay
For the tone of the comments here, it'll be more the year of the Hurd Virtual
Machine.

------
breakingcups
>Since the last snapshot release coinciding with "wheezy", the init system has
been switched to sysvinit for a more Debian-like experience.

Hehehe, didn't Debian just switch to systemd with Jessie?

~~~
teddyh
They changed the _default_ to systemd. Sysvinit is still available.

~~~
0xFFC
Availability of Sysvinit does not mean you can use it as safe as systemd ,
there is no requirement for Sysvinit support in debian package's anymore , so
if you want use Sysvinit then you maybe encounter some package which does not
work on debian.

------
vezzy-fnord
I have a snapshot from May 2014 running as a VirtualBox instance. Tried IceWM
and a GNU build chain on it. I'll probably update soon, need to find out what
open issues have been addressed in 0.6.

~~~
christianbryant
I just rolled GNU/Hurd 2015 into a VM. It's early, but the first thing I'll
note is that I felt for the first time that GNU/Hurd is a deployable OS.
Still, I need that 64-bit version... killing me, here!

~~~
mikegioia
Do you have any info or a website you could point me to on how to build the
image into a virtualbox VM? Running VBoxManage from their guide [1] isn't
working for me. I can create the VDI file but on boot I'm getting an error
saying hd0s1 isn't found >_<

[1] [https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-
install](https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install)

~~~
christianbryant
Have you tried qemu/kvm? You also use the pre-rolled here:

[http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-
cd/hurd-i386/current/READ...](http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-
cd/hurd-i386/current/README.txt)

------
pedrow
I wanted to look at the source code. Just to save anyone else the time to find
it, the link is:

[http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/hurd/hurd.git/tree/?id=v0.6](http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/hurd/hurd.git/tree/?id=v0.6)

~~~
satuon
Why Savannah (in savannah.gnu.org I mean)?

~~~
detaro
Gnus live in the Savannah?

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tormeh
What are the advantages vs. Minix 3?

~~~
mreiland
how far along is Minix 3?

~~~
tormeh
Sounds similar to hurd. 32bit only, graphical ui, bsd applications.
Theoretically usable as a daily driver.

~~~
carussell
> graphical ui

Not currently.

> Theoretically usable as a daily driver.

Not likely.

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jheriko
wait... its not april 1st? awesome. :)

~~~
ArneBab
Not this time — but 4 years ago it was ☺

→
[http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/news/2011-04-01.html](http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/news/2011-04-01.html)

Times change.

