Ironically, general purpose computing. Like servers, smartphones, etc. The premise of Fuchsia, as a prominent example, is to build an OS that operates more like a sandboxed/capabilities-based microservices platform, with structured IPC across processes. All major platforms both cloud and clients (even browsers) have gone to great lengths to deliver precisely that on top of existing OSs, with many expensive layers and hacks. It would be a lot nicer to have it built into the OS.
Dumb, probably overly broad Q: I'm looking to build a hardware project off a flutter app. Linux on Raspberry Pi is the straightforward option. But I want an excuse to build on Fuchsia.
Let's pretend Fuchsia is just as easy to deploy on (I'm 99% sure it won't be).
Does Fuchsia buy me any cool stuff long-term that isn't possible on Linux?
Like, what's my excuse for going with Fuchsia other than "(handwaves) it'll be more secure"? (to be clear, im teasing myself and my understanding of Fuchsia, not your explanation)
> Let's pretend Fuchsia is just as easy to deploy on (I'm 99% sure it won't be).
To stress this beyond a doubt: don’t do this unless you’re willing to become an early-masochistic-martyr adopter. My knowledge is outdated by years though. I don’t know how far you’d get today.
> Does Fuchsia buy me any cool stuff long-term that isn't possible on Linux?
I don’t think so. Fuchsia shines with capability-based multitenancy, and basically anywhere you would have different processes from different vendors communicating together (like a mobile OS with multiple partially trusted apps that may need to talk to one another). If you own/audit all code on your device, especially in a single app, you don’t gain anything from that.
Some auxiliary stuff like content addressable file system and OTA deployments may be attractive, but I have no idea if those things are actually supported or even around these days.
Oh, one thing that may be worth tracking in your domain is how fuchsia is progressing in terms of power management. If you’re on arm and battery power, and they prioritize it, it may beat Linux & android in terms of low power devices. But that’s pure speculation.
Unikernels. Throw away the OS completely, and just run the server application on the hardware/hypervisor. That would be my answer for servers. You kinda don't need an OS for them.
Dreaming of a world where normal PCs could have an OS on the quality level of MacOS with the software ecosystem but Linux is just too fragmented that you can't build anything coherent or reliable on an interface level in the way MacOS is.
This isn't saying Linux is bad, its great at what it does and being modular but how can something like MacOS spell check where it works on any text field coherently across any app work in a modular world like that.
Windows just feels like bad decisions made decades ago hold it back, it can't even open a folder of 20 thumbnails without choking, MacOS can handle 10,000 like a knife through butter. Can't even find a file opened yesterday when you search for it in the start menu by exact name, MacOS manages in a fraction of a second. Maybe the right team could rewrite all the things causing this jank but you'd essentially have to replace so much of the company that caused it anyway that it doesn't seem feasible.
Still use all 3 for different tasks but MacOS is the only one that feels like an operating system should feel in 2024.
A space where operating systems exist to service the operator and not the OS vendor.
One that isn’t just a vehicle to push ads and subscriptions to <blank>-as-a-service or otherwise act as a siphon to send telemetry up to the mothership.
Yes, I know *nix exists but it’s so fractured and every little variant has its own quirks making it difficult to be a general purpose OS that the masses could adopt, IMO.
> Yes, I know *nix exists but it’s so fractured and every little variant has its own quirks making it difficult to be a general purpose OS that the masses could adopt, IMO.
Yes, but to be clear: the main hurdle for adoption is fragmentation across GUIs/installs/package management across distros, which is out of scope (for better or worse) from the POV of Linux. Linux is a technological marvel, and if “they” could sort out these issues it would be the shortest path to mainstream appeal, by far. I’m certain this is technically feasible but also extremely challenging to pull off from a leadership perspective. Unfortunately, I don’t think there is a solution the majority would embrace. There is a ton of flame wars to overcome, hills people will die on.
