
Fuchsia: Micro kernel written in C by Google - tnorgaard
https://github.com/fuchsia-mirror/magenta
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tnorgaard
Less technical article: [https://www.fastcompany.com/3063006/why-on-earth-is-
google-b...](https://www.fastcompany.com/3063006/why-on-earth-is-google-
building-a-new-operating-system-from-scratch) (Why On Earth Is Google Building
A New Operating System From Scratch?).

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okket
Previous:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12271354](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12271354)
(10 days ago, 168 comments)

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Jaruzel
One wonders if Fuchsia is one of those '20% time' projects, where a single (or
group) of Googlers get to spend 20% of their work time on a personal side-
project.

Even if not, I'm also thinking that if the roadmap here is for a drop-in
replacement OS for the AI inside Google cars - don't they currently run a
variant of Linux? Which as the fastcompany article says, isn't an RTOS.

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akerro
We know Google has its own CPU made from scratch, now new OS... is Google
creating new end-to-end solution for desktop/mobile? With completely new
hardware and software on it?

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exDM69
> We know Google has its own CPU made from scratch, now new OS...

CPU from scratch?

Are you referring to the LLVM backend for a "new" lanai ISA that they
contributed recently? That wasn't designed by Google (but an existing
networking equipment manufacturer) and it wasn't a general purpose CPU
(integer only, no hardware dividers, made for running a TCP/IP stack and not
much else).

This new kernel/OS is a bit more interesting than that. This seems to be
targeted at end user devices, runs on x86 and ARM and has got some kind of
userspace with UI going on.

It would be interesting to know what this is targeted at.

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akerro
Yes, I'm referring to what was described in this thread
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11072085](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11072085)

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exDM69
Yeah, I assumed you meant that.

That's not something that's intended for consumer hardware, it's a special
purpose CPU used in high-end networking hardware. It's been around for a
while, the only real news in that was the upstreaming of the LLVM backend
code. It did cause some unwarranted rumors, though.

A quick peek at the actual code reveals that it's not a general purpose CPU. A
few web searches will tell that it's a custom CPU used in Myricom's LANAI
networking products. There's a much older GCC backend and other compiler tools
for it available too.

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mmrezaie
How Fuchsia is compared to L4?

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jokoon
I guess that will reboot the micro kernel vs monolithic kernel discussion.

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hbogert
Shouldn't it be "Micro kernel written in C++" ?

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pritambaral
Github says the code is 72.6% C and 19.3% C++.

Personally, I wouldn't call that 'definitely C' or 'definitely C++'

The Linux kernel, just for reference, is 95.7% C and only 2% C++

