
GNU Hurd 0.9, GNU Mach 1.8, GNU MIG 1.8 Released - terrestrial
https://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/news/2016-12-18-releases.html
======
lokedhs
I remember installing Hurd on actual hardware back in 1996[1] and I as far as
I can recall, it was quite interesting to use.

Since then, on regular intervals[2] I've attempted to install the most recent
version, but I have failed every single time[3].

I'm also noting that Hurd is still only 32-bit.

Is there actually a plan to make this into a system that can actually be used?
Exactly what is it about the Hurd project that makes it take so long to
finish? There have been several examples of single developers creating a
usable[4] operating system in the span of a couple years.

[1] Yes, 20 years ago

[2] Perhaps once every one or two years

[3] Running a preconfigured VM image doesn't count

[4] More usable than Hurd is today

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disordinary
Basically Linux and then BSD took all the wind out of Hurds sails. A lot of
that was timing, and also because those projects were much more attractive to
big business who put a tremendous amount of development resources behind them.

As far as I know QNX is the only usable OS based on a microkernel.

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pjmlp
Quite a few embedded OSes are microkernels, L4 being one of them.

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disordinary
Interestingly L4 is being used to power the secure enclave on iOS devices so
it's probably the most distributed microkernel.

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qwertyuiop924
It's kind of unbelievable that HURD is still going. It's been the butt of many
a joke in the Unix world: our equivalent of Duke Nukem Forever, or Mordeth.

I can't admire their release schedule, but you're got to admire their
persistance.

One day, it might just be ready...

~~~
nickpsecurity
That's great. You make an excellent comparison between its promises vs success
vs DNF's. disordinary inadvertently points out that, unlike Hurd, DNF
eventually delivered and at least made some money selling 376,300 units. It's
kind of a cutdown on DNF to compare it to Hurd which wasn't finished, had
little adoption, and sold 0 units. Even MULTICS and SCOMP probably had more
adoption in significant use cases despite them practically being case studies
on things with low adoption due to expenses or tough tradeoffs.

Meanwhile, Minix 3 and Genode are going strong despite originally being made
by only a handful of people for a tiny fraction of the time. Hurd is truly a
dead end in marketing if the likes of DNF surpasses it in deliverables and
adoption.

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qwertyuiop924
...Which is why Mordeth is a more apt comparison: over 18 years of
"development" by a volunteer (I think it's only one), and still no release.

~~~
nickpsecurity
Yeah that makes sense.

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NoOn3
Good thoughts about GNU Hurd
[https://www.reddit.com/r/hurd/comments/273tij/hurd_the_minix...](https://www.reddit.com/r/hurd/comments/273tij/hurd_the_minix_3_microkernel/chxycem/).

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phkahler
Do a RISC V port so hardware can be supported as it becomes available. No more
need to play catch-up with drivers.

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ajdlinux
Most device drivers are more or less independent of CPU architecture. A PCI
card is going to be the same PCI card no matter whether it's running on x86,
Power, RISC-V or anything else.

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laumars
Device drivers don't execute on the device. They execute on the CPU,
instructing the OS how to use the device. So device drivers do need to support
both the CPU architecture and the OS platform.

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kobeya
Not when they are open source...

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jheriko
lol. good joke there.

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kobeya
That's ... literally what the GP comment was about.

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jheriko
i don't understand.

i was trying to comment on the idea that something being open source doesn't
change that it needs compiling for a particular platform, and that it should
be expected to not be straightfowards. especially at the low level where you
need to raise interrupts and fill particular registers...

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kobeya
Oh that's actually reasonably cross platform these days. You can write drivers
that are ISA independent and make use of kernel APIs for interacting with the
hardware. There's no reason to drop into assembly. (Although yes sometimes the
memory coherency model or details of the interrupt handler protocol bleed into
a driver requiring tweaks to get it to work, but those are bugs a good driver
author can avoid.)

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jheriko
> those are bugs a good driver author can avoid

some hardware can be a nightmare for this stuff though...

i still contend that it can be much more complicated than simply recompiling
for your target... and even when its not, that is still one more step than
doing nothing, which was the impression i got from the "its open source you
can do nothing" comment.

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Light2Yellow
The changelog is so small... Can someone explain why do we need this? Why
would we want to use it?

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CalChris
I agree. Given the massive success of BSD opensource L4, I think the only
reason for Hurd's continued claim is its association with Stallman. Are there
any technical merits here?

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BuuQu9hu
The translators feature is pretty awesome.

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gravypod
I know this is a bit off topic but is there anything to read about how to
implement a microkernel? Like a real booting system for x86.

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lobster_johnson
Andrew Tannenbaum's Minix [1] was pretty much made for this purpose. The
current version is no longer a "teaching OS", but there is a lot of
documentation on earlier versions around, including the original 1987 book [2]
that Tannenbaum wrote on operating systems (which comes with the Minix source
code).

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINIX](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINIX)

[2]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_Systems:_Design_an...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_Systems:_Design_and_Implementation)

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gravypod
I have the book but I haven't finished it yet. Will I come out having written
a full kernel by the time I'm done?

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lobster_johnson
No, it's not a tutorial, which I don't think would make sense. Rather, it's a
walk through the design and implementation of Minix. Minix is tiny, so you can
actually follow along. In theory, by the time you're done you'll not just know
Minix, but you'd be able to write your own kernel if you wanted to.

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fithisux
I hope they port Rust to it in order to take advantage of drivers ported in
Rust which will become commonplace I foresee.

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rekado
A lot of applications already work on the Hurd. There's GNU Guix for the Hurd
as well. Support for applications is pretty great. It's hardware support
that's lacking, but it's getting better with NetBSD's rump kernel.

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txgvnn
I expect really in the GNU Hurd, keep calm and carry on.

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Fjolsvith
haha, thought this title first read GNUrd Hurd. Dang dyslexia.

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agumonkey
Beware of using dang here, as it might confuse people with HN admin ;)

