
Google’s Fuchsia OS on the Pixelbook: It Works It Actually Works - rbanffy
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/01/googles-fuchsia-os-on-the-pixelbook-it-works-it-actually-works/2/
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Promarged
I don't know why but I'm actually less excited about Fuchsia than the old
Singularity/Midori. As Joe Duffy said [0] when they worked on Midori they also
wrote UI, editors, browsers and many more applications in months so it's not
surprising Google engineers also managed that.

[0]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuD7SCqHB7k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuD7SCqHB7k)

For me it looks like the classic Not Invented Here syndrome - we already have
microkernels, even formally verified ones (seL4) but AFAIK Google didn't want
that to "be more flexible".

Using C for kernel also looks like a poor choice nowadays, unless Google has
some magic static analysis (for example Singularity/Midori had custom
languages with ownership tracking akin to Rust).

Maybe Fuchsia is for bringing microkernel architecture for masses using
"boring technology"?

~~~
markonen
Here's a quick ELI5 style question: what are the implications of Meltdown
mitigations on microkernel architectures (vs monolithic designs)?

~~~
Promarged
Singularity used Software Isolated Processes. Basically the apps were
distributed as .NET bytecode, compiled by Bartok on the target system to
native code. That guaranteed that processes never accessed each other's memory
so you wouldn't need regular process isolation.

I haven't thought about the implications to reading kernel memory but it'd be
great to see a paper on the subject.

