
Replacing Linux with a Database System - rbanffy
https://www.nextplatform.com/2018/07/23/replacing-linux-with-a-database-system/
======
apenwarr
If you click through to the actual paper at the bottom of the article, the
methodology here is just astonishing: they start by, without evidence,
asserting that the main thing fork() does is to insert and remove processes
from a list of processes. Then they write a program that creates a table of
processes in a distributed database and adds and removes rows from it. Then
they compare the speed of that with the speed of actually running fork() on
the same cluster of machines. That’s the entire paper. You can’t make this
stuff up.

“I am not able rightly to apprehend the confusion of ideas that could provoke
such a question.” - Charles Babbage

~~~
incompatible
Bizarre. Linux must already have some kind of "database" system for keeping
track of system resources. At best, the claim would be that Linux is using an
inefficient database, which seems unlikely.

~~~
sbjs
You would absolutely be surprised how far you can get using a process’s memory
as it’s official database and just dumping it out to disk periodically for
persistence. I kind of want to write an article but the article can’t do it
justice: It’s something you need to experience yourself to fully appreciate it
and be wowed like I was. I’m sure Linux uses files for its persistence layer
for most cases.

~~~
Filligree
We're talking about the process table and so forth. It's never persisted at
all.

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emersonrsantos
z/TPF [1], is basically a database system OS that runs almost all VISA, AMEX,
Citibank (authorizations); Holiday Inn, Amtrak, Mariott, Air Canada, Delta,
Japan Airlines, Travelport, Trenitalia (reservations). But it's IBM
proprietary and runs only on IBM licensed hardware.

It's always in my programming dreams to be involved in building a database OS
with I/O capabilities since I worked with TPF and MUMPS.

[1] [https://www.ibm.com/it-infrastructure/z/transaction-
processi...](https://www.ibm.com/it-infrastructure/z/transaction-processing-
facility)

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panic
This idea of combining concurrent processes and data tables is reminiscent of
"tuple spaces"
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuple_space](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuple_space),
[https://software-carpentry.org/blog/2011/03/tuple-spaces-
or-...](https://software-carpentry.org/blog/2011/03/tuple-spaces-or-good-
ideas-dont-always-win.html)).

~~~
protomyth
To be honest, if your database has decent queuing facilities, it isn’t a bad
programming strategy to use the database as a tuple space for piranha
processes. You don’t run afoul of corporate architecture teams for using ‘new’
software and you can devolve a lot of business processes into small,
independent programs. It also provides an easy way to upgrade parts of your
software by freezing a queue table for reads but not writes.

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Animats
This makes sense. Once you have something with a lot of compute nodes, you
have to orchestrate them all somehow. That's the real "operating system" for
such systems. Each node just needs a loader and setup program to load work
containers. Supercomputers, big cloud data centers, and things built from lots
of GPUs tend to be organized like this.

Have things reached the point yet where containers run as Xen guests, and the
real OS is Kubernetes? Then you don't need Linux under your container, and
with the right library, you don't need Linux in your container. Less OS state
to get screwed up.

~~~
dijit
I feel like collectively the tech industry has forgotten what an OS is. We’re
so used to Linux bring batteries included now that we assume we can supplant
it.

Linux itself is not going away simply because replacing all those device
drivers and ABIs is going to be incredibly difficult. Now, if you’re
suggesting something new will sit atop Linux as the user land acting as a
sandwich-filling between the Linux kernel and a multitude of userlands
spanning many systems- I might agree.

~~~
pjmlp
No we have not, UNIX is C's runtime in a way, standardized as POSIX for
compatibility across other platforms.

So when using POSIX, or any other programming model rich enough not to mess
with OS specific APIs, the OS becomes irrelevant.

It can be Linux, Windows, Aix, OS/400, z/OS, or even bare metal, it doesn't
matter.

~~~
HeadsUpHigh
>So when using POSIX, or any other programming model rich enough not to mess
with OS specific APIs, the OS becomes irrelevant.

Except that things like systemd and a lot of redhat related software rely on
Linux-specific functions like cgroups so they are not portable. Good luck
replacing Linux even if something that much better comes up.

~~~
pjmlp
Not everyone makes use of those features and the last time I was using a Red-
Hat system, it was for Java deployments, which is also not Linux related in
any form.

Same applies to the C, C++, Fortran and now Chapel code that usually runs on
HPC clusters.

~~~
HeadsUpHigh
Everyone uses systemd... I hope people are smart enough to not fall for it and
not use all the scope-creeped features of it but if you add all the little
things up, it turns out that we are getting more and more stuck with linux.

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pankajdoharey
I think a more Apt-model to replace Linux is Erlang VM. It is a
OS/Kernel/Scheduler in its own right. All that is required is a bootable
microkernel erlang vm, with the same process monitoring as the mainstream and
you have a highly scalable multi processor , network transparent computing
device.

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pcunite
I don't recall where I read it, but I've came across a concept to where the
computer, then kernel, simply load your application and everything runs in
this user or application space which takes all memory and resources to itself.

~~~
unimpressive
Unikernel? [http://unikernel.org/](http://unikernel.org/)

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pmlnr
"Linux" Which kernel? Is it optimized and compiled for the hardware?

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nottorp
Simulations? No implementations?

~~~
isthatart
See section V Simulation Results
[https://arxiv.org/pdf/1807.05308.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1807.05308.pdf)

~~~
nottorp
Didn't read the paper, but see apenwarr's comment. Something is very
theoretical (to be polite) here.

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ageofwant
This is what happens when Academia becomes disjointed from reality. This is
how you get sky hooks and turtles all the way down.

