Slashdot Mirror
Hurd: H2 CD Images
An anonymous submitter sends in: "The Debian GNU/Hurd team released a new Hurd CD Image. Snapshot images are produced at a four to eight week interval and the H2 images are the tenth of the series. The Hurd has grown from one CD image in August 2000 (A1) to four images in December 2001 (H2). These images are snapshots of a developing operating system, so suitable precautions must be taken when making an installation. Similar to other architectures, most important programs reside on CD 1, while the other ones contain less important packages. For the moment, Hurd doesn't support card sound and partition size is still limited to 1 GB. Hurd use the Debian packaging system (dpkg and apt as for Debian linux) , so it is simple to install and update packages."
yay for hurd! Now we have the choice between 20 window managers, 10 editors, and two kernels!
he said in the post that Hurd was not far away. This was ten years ago, and we're still waiting.
maybe if slashdot talks a litle bit more about it more ppl will join and code for it... maybe...
What ? Me, worry ?
Until Hurd is closer to Linux or BSD in partition size and overall capabilities, it isn't going to pick up much in the way of popularity.
What they have now is a rather "chicken and the egg" syndrome - it won't achieve popularity until more people start developing for it, and people won't care enough to develop for it until it's more popular.
However, the biggest drawback to Hurd is probably the fact that the people it might most appeal to (people who don't like linux or bsd style unix purists) are less likely to use it because they won't want to put up with the Hurd philosophy, when BSD is already there.
Who is going to use it? Linux has all the bells and whistles for people who love the GPL, and the BSD people who like pure unix and freedom (I know, what is pure unix anyway) are going to stick with *BSD.
I may be stupid, I'll concede that, but that link dosnt give any direct information as to what HURD is.
http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd.html
I have to question the person that marked this as informative when the link leads to a search result page with no results.
'Funny' may have been appropriate (vaporware) but certainly not 'informative'.
Rod Taylor
Forget about GNU for a second - what are the technical reasons why anyone would want to use Hurd?
Careful! Get the Hurd before the stampede!
*ducks*
Linux really doesn't impress me, but if I was into that whole GPL philosophy, it seems like Linux would be an easy choice over Hurd, which seems pretty far behind. Can a Hurd supporter give a couple of reasons why anyone would choose Hurd over Linux?
heh, here's one:
int proc_doulongvec_minmax(ctl_table *table, int write, struct file *filp,
void *buffer, size_t *lenp)
{
return -ENOSYS;
}
Unfortunately, no-one can be told what the Hurd is. You have to see it for yourself.
I think variety is good. Keeps things interesting. But what bothers me about HURD is that they promote that it has all of the new things, but read the following:
> On the negative side, the support for character devices (like sound cards) and other hardware is mostly missing. Although the POSIX interface is provided, some additional interfaces like POSIX threads, shared memories or semaphores are still under development.
Ah, folks that is the heart of HURD, the advantage of handling shared memories, semaphores, clusters, etc. What the HURD developers should have done is focused on the hard stuff and then I think people would whine less.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
So in terms of 30 year old baggage, HURD is out there with Linux, BSD Lite, QNX and Darwin/MacOS X.
Me, I like the *ix way of thinking. If I dislike anything about GNU/Linux, BSD, etc these days, it's how far they're going away from the KISS principles that make *ix excellent.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Hmm, I've never heard of this card sound. Is this some sort of new audio technology. I guess that since linux doesn't support it either it's no wonder Hurd doesn't support it.............
:)
Okay, I'll shut up now
Does having a microkernel slow things down at all?
Microkernels attempt to give you a much more "UNIX-like" way of making a kernel: a lot of independent little "servers" that talk to each other and are somewhat isolated from each other. A bug in one kernel module will often not crash the whole system, and there is much less coupling between kernel components. Microkernels are not the most efficient way of achieving that kind of modularity, since the memory protection mechanisms they use are more costly than relying on compiler/language support together with dynamic loading, but given that people are going to continue to write lots of C code for the kernel, a microkernel may be the best compromise for achieving a modular, extensible kernel in the real world.
Well, it's good to see that both the Hurd and the Darwin projects are coming along. I'll certainly give this a try. Its hard for any new kernel architecture to replace something as mature, functional, and widely-used as Linux. But if something like the Hurd turns out to be significantly easier to extend and hack, it may well catch up quickly. Another path to acceptance is that people find that, despite having fewer drivers and less functionality, the functionality that something like the Hurd offers may be easier to configure and deliver to end users in prepackaged form (i.e., without "make menuconfig" and lots of obscure decisions).
I don't now anything about Hurd but one reason could be that some people (including myself) do care more about the underlying philosophy than if something "just works".
I think that KISS is no longer a part of the de facto Unix world. When you have hundreds of different ways of keeping things simple that have hundreds of simple kludges and workarounds to keep simply working together, the accumulated legacy cruft is, simply, no longer simple. It's a wonderful example of how incredible complex systems can emerge from the very simple behaviours of a few agents. Unfortunately, that makes it a royal pain in the ass sometimes.
I installed it on my system on its dedicated spare disk, boot it, run it and update the release from time to time.
It's not great as for device support but getting there. Drivers have always and will always be a problem for ANY OS (look at MacOS X and *BSD for living examples.) There are other features in the OS itself that make it forth a try.
If you guys are curious about it, you should definitely give it a try. Some compatibility layer is also provide for Linux drivers and apps. This needs work but what doesn't really.
The good thing is the upper layers which will provide POSIX compatibility for Unix developers to port their work. Pretty straightforward. The main reason why the distro has grown so largely in a small amount of time.
I read false assumptions and mistaken comments on this list about what is HURD. It's a kernel like Linux, and it's based on a microkernel architecture. Mach 4.0 happens to be this micro kernel but the architecture is not locked down so this can evolve if needs to be.
I read also people asking why does HURD exist at all. The answer is pretty simple: Why not? In the ten years it has existed, it should have died many times but it's still here. It's not a commercial OS like BeOS, some it doesn't need to generate streams of revenues to survive. It's just a bunch of code with ideas in it that are still pretty amazing today for it to still occupy developers to put efforts in it.
After all, we are living in a society that should encourage diversity and growth of new ideas (the US haven't being built with pioneers.) So, I am getting sick and tired of the moronic way of thinking in black & white (binary): Only two alternatives (Linux vs. Windoz) and no space for the others . And why is that? Why not letting people who enjoy using BSD and developing with HURD just do it without being hassled by the 2 main opponents?
Feeling grumpy because of the rain today.
PPA, the girl next door.
-- I feel better now. Thanks for asking.
The only reason microkernels exist is limitations in existing protection mechanisms. There are only two levels, kernel and user, and each must be protected from the other. My question is this: what about something like the x86 segmentation mechanism? x86 segments have the cool property that a piece of code has the privelege level of the segment containing it. The nifty thing about that is that there are 4 privlege levels, so that you can have the kernel at the lowest level, less important stuff like the GUI at a higher level, and the app at the highest level. That way nothing can crash a more important component. I was wondering why this scheme hasn't been extend to paging. On every memory reference, the processor could check the privelege level of the page containing the currently executing code, and make sure that the target memory has an appropriate privlege level. This makes things even faster than a mono-kernel, since the only thing that is necessary to do a system call is a simple jump to the appropriate code (which would be dozens of times faster than a standard system call on x86). This shouldn't be any slower than the current way of doing things. The privlege of the current code would only have to be read whenever a page boundry was crossed, and would only reference memory during a TLB fault (which would have to reference memory anyway). The proc already does a protection check on the kernel/user bit on the page table entry anyway, so that scheme could be extended to multiple privlege levels without a slowdown. Am I missing something, or does an existing processor already do this?
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Oh well.
========================================
Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
Now understand I know very little in the approach, but from what I gather, microkernal operating systems run all drivers as services. You can actually kill your keyboard, sound, disk access, etc. driver with a simple kill command. This also allows easy portabliity and scalability because all of your drivers are not IN the kernel code itself, but external programs.
So tell me, what advantages/disadvantages does this have over QNX? QNX may be closed source, but it is free for home use. I really would like to know how this stacks up against QNX, in which I was actually able to play Quake3, WITH SOUND! Oh, and QNX sets-up and configures everything on my system, AND WORKS, you cant get much better than that.
Something about HURD that doesn't make sense to me. One gigabyte partitions and FOUR distro cds. Now lets say each CD only uses 512megs. That is two gigabytes. Something here strike you as odd?
Anyways, I am really not an avid linux person, after attempting to install debian(video setup, ARGH!!), mandrake(VNC would stop the system from finishing boot), and darwin(ok, that was stupid to even try). Things like QNX and Windows 9x/2k just work. So Windows9x is unstable, at least I can get it installed with my eyes shut.
It's best to avoid processor-specific functionality
in large architectural decisions if you want to be
portable. Besides, it's nicer for modern systems
to have components that are layered better than
a cake, so that if I have two very important parts,
I know that they can't crash each other
accidentaly.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Without the GNU project Linux as an OS would simply not exist. There MIGHT be a 1.x kernel floating around right now had there need no GNU project to actually do something with the kernel. Where do you think most of the shit redhat packages as their "base" system comes from? They sure as hell didn't write it themselves. It's also pretty retarded to say "why use HURD when there's Linux" because by the same logic you can say "why use Linux when there is [insert OS here]". How come Linux users are so quick to forget all of the stuff that had to happen for Linux to even exist. Shit man one wayward sperm and ther'd be no Linus to write Linux.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
We should all use Hurd instead of Linux. Linux numbers disk partitions from 1 (/dev/hda1, /dev/hda2, ...), while GRUB, the Hurd bootloader, numbers partitions from 0. As any self-respecting computer scientist knows, it is more proper to index things beginning with 0. Therefore, Hurd is a superior operating system, and we should all immediately switch to Hurd.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
But I can imitate one:
Because it's new.
Because it's different.
Because it's a work in progress.
Because it's an adventure.
Because it's exciting.
Because it offers features monolithic kernels do not offer.
GPL Deconstructed
most of the people here would have read about the differences between micro and monolithic kernels [almost a holy war in os design] . in reality it has been the case that the micokernel design has been very much an academicia exercise rather than a commercial one. though it might be due to various other reasons, it does show that there is some merit into 1) making things work for a particular case 2) once working, making it work for others RATHER than trying in one go to get a simpler solution.
i _do_ know that microkernels are much more than what i seem to think of them from the above:) yes the design and the philosophy is very different and surely interesting but practical ?....
i have taken advanced OS classes and i really do feel that the Mach though it had great ideas WAY beyond its time , was horribly complex and interwoven and so much so that anyone cringes on hearing a system based on the Mach:)
i think the Hurd is in a good position to prove us all wrong:) as its closely tied with the debian developers [who have done great work till now] and it has been slowly [very:)] progressing....
best of luck to them:)
vv
Beos.
Except free (as the spoken beer is...), and not quite hitting puberty yet...
I've scanned all the postings, and I haven't seen any other comparisons, but the descriptions from here and from the web page seem like about the same architecture...minus the extreme multi-threading and the integrated gui...
At any rate, it sure seems like this would be (yet another) great base to work from for re-building that OS that ain't no more...
Sig currently under construction. Mind the gap....
Dude, nice attempt to bait the GNU people.
You imply that people either love freedom or the GPL, but not both. Do we *really* have to have that conversation again here? Unless you're being paid by microsoft, this is just senseless infighting between two groups whose goals are almost totally in alignment.
It reminds me of a time some friends of mine wouldn't speak to each other. Why? They were both animal rights advocates- but one group thought that it was a good idea to argue that animal testing was ineffective, and the other team thought this was a bad idea because it implied that if testing worked, it would be a good idea. As a result, the movement splintered, while the research advocates ("animal rights opponents") spoke with a unified voice. The internal strategic debate ruined the overall message they were both trying to send.
The parallel to the BSD vs. GPL debate is striking. It is a fun and important debate to have, but ultimately the harm that comes from ubiquitous closed-source can't-build-on-it software, which satisfies the goals of neither camp, vastly overwhelms the importance of this philosophical discussion. It makes it seem like theologians arguing over how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. If I was Microsoft's head evangelist, I'd be silently funding extremists on both sides trying to create bad political blood between these groups.
I'm not saying we shouldn't argue, obviously the issues need to be fleshed out. I'm just saying that these arguments ought to show respect for the other side (no more "we're more freedom-loving than you" namecalling), and that they ought to always be mindful of the context they are operating in - discussing the best way to create a body of free software in a world of proprietary de facto standards.
So I'm begging with all of you, show respect for your adversaries in this discussion. Acknowledge that the point of view held by the other side is understandable even if you believe that it's in error, but most importantly always make a special effort to identify the context of the discussion: that is, how can we best preserve freedom against those who would prefer all software to be proprietary?
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
GNU carries 18 years of its own emotional baggage, and it was intended from the beginning to be a superset of Unix. This isn't the clean slate you're looking for.
So, you being a representative of these "x86 kernel hackers" (I assume that you believe yourself to be one), would you be so kind as to enlighten us about what the overhead of context switching really is? Believe me, most academics working in the field has a pretty good idea of what's going on. I just find statements like yours completely hillarious, and a testament to the ignorance and stupidity of people who find Linux kernel hacking to be 1337.
Then there's the debate of putting GNU on everything ... why ... GNU doesn't own it ... the author owns it ... and unless GNU wants to pay for my life like it does stallman ... my software won't be GNU ... it will however follow the GPL license ... well that is ... until I make it BSD code :-) ..
Where do you get this thing about "putting GNU on everything"?
The only thing I can think of that you could mean is the whole GNU/Linux thing.
There is a kernel called Linux.
There are operating systems built using that kernel and also using the GNU utilities and other GNU code (i.e. things that actually come from the GNU project, not just stuff that's under the GPL).
These operating systems are generally called Linux, just like the kernel. I call them Linux just like most people do, it's a nice easy name and people have a pretty good idea what you mean when you use it.
The FSF would like people to call these operating systems GNU/Linux to reflect the GNU code that's used in them as well as the Linux kernel. This has nothing to do with Linux being under the GPL. It has nothing to do with them wanting to "put GNU in front of everything". They explicitly and emphatically are not asking people to call Linux (the kernel) anything except Linux.
I can understand disagreeing with their wish that you call these operating systems GNU/Linux. Like I said I call them Linux. But from your post it doesn't seem that you actually understand their position well enough to disagree with it. They aren't asking for GPLd programs in general or software in general to be prepended with GNU. I doubt very much that you have any reason for your apparent fear that they will wish to call your software GNU/whatever just because it's under the GPL. I'm assuming that you were genuinely confused on this point.
If you were just trolling then yes, ha ha how stupid of me to respond seriously, you really got me there. My I'm stupid. Well done.
I hope you were honestly confused and that I've helped you to understand the FSF's position. By all means disagree with it but try not to misrepresent it.
The basic premise behind a microkernel is that device drivers will be black box proprietary binary code from untrusted third parties, hence require clumsy run-time protection. This hypothesis has been invalidated in practice for proprietary systems, and doesn't even make sense in theory for free software systems.
There is no need whatsoever for expansive memory protection between modules at runtime. Modularity is great, but at development-time, not runtime. HURD doesn't give you any additional development-time modularity; if anything, it removes it. If you want development-time modularity, drop that stupid C language, and use a modular language, such as Modula-3 (SPIN-OS), SML (Fox, Express), or Erlang (standalone Erlang).
Microkernels were the latest hype in the 1980's for OS development. They've only ever been hype, and it's sad that GNU people waste their time with such a stupid concept, whereas there's so much more to OS design, including lots of proven concepts, that just await to be implemented in free software (who's gonna implement the lost features from Genera? from Eumel?)
-- Faré @ TUNES.org
Reflection & Cybernet
If you open yourself to the foo, You and foo become one.
http://fsfeurope.org/
No, GNU/Hurd.
The packages were designed for the GNU operating system, which first ran under the Linux kernel, and now runs under the Hurd kernel which is the designated native kernel of the GNU operating system.
My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And
Certainly nobody could have done much with the Linux kernel without either the GNU userland (total reliance on which makes a GNU system) or a BSD userland, but why the HURD kernel deserves work when the Linux kernel is much farther along remains a valid question.
Personally, I think capabilities (securely running untrusted code) are the Next Big Thing in operating system innovation, because we've seen what a vulnerable environment we get if we have to delegate all our privileges to any random code we want to run. User-space drivers (a la HURD and Plan 9) seem to be a step towards that.
I think so far GNU has done a lot more for Linux (without GNU there wouldn't be much more than a kernel) than Linux (ONLY a kernel) has done for GNU. It's just the way open source works. The packages you mention may have been written for a specific Linux distribution, but they are not Linux; they are simple some packages written for a specific distribion which happened to run the Linux kernel. The Linux kernel just helped the community grow, which then helped the GNU group etc etc etc. The Linux kernel is only a rather small part of the whole. And without XFree86 (for example) Linux wouldn't be as big as it is now. So now maybe we should start calling Linux GNU/XFree86/Linux. But oh wait...XFree86 was developed using GNU tools. So XFree86 should be called GNU/XFree86 so Linux should be called GNU/GNU/Xfree86 Linux. I think we'd end up with a lot of GNU's in the names of the software we use:]
0x or or snor perron?!
so Linux should be called GNU/GNU/Xfree86 Linux. I think we'd end up with a lot of GNU's in the names of the software we use :]
Isn't that the point of GNU's NOT UNIX? You can fold up as many mentions in front as you like, because it's a recursive acronym, and it still means the same infinite amount no matter how many of them you stick in front.
GNU was never really finished -- if the HURD kernel is ever final, it will be the last piece. But when you clone a highly modular system like Unix, you end up with a lot of bits and pieces that are useful as separate products. So GNU's libraries, utilities, and (most of all) compilers developed a life all their own. Personally, I've never been impressed with the quality of GNU software, but it does have functionality that closed-source venders always seem to overlook. So GNU products are almost ubiquitous in the Unix world, and have a fair following on other platforms.
So time passes. It's 1991. People are still waiting for an alternative to paying fees to whoever owns Unix. (It changed hands several times.) One cheap alternative is minix a sort of toy Unix that sells for $100. But a certain Finnish grad student can't even afford even that much. He decides to write his own Unix kernel. He gives away copies to a few friends. Who give it to a few friends... All of a suddent, lots of people are using this kernel to run all the GNU software. Which means there's now a free alternative to Unix! Project GNU has succeeded! It's just not complete.
And since the final piece of the puzzle is a non-GNU program, that program ends up being the name for the whole conglomeration! Much to the disgust of Stallman. Maybe he's just testy because Torvalds doesn't like EMACS.
Hmm let us see, back in 1991 how many academics would have been basing their O/S research on such an unfashionable and underpowered device as the 386? It was mid 1995 before anyone outside Intel realised that they might be able to win the processor race with brute force application of cash. Back in 1991 the SPARC chip and the MIPS series were the hot devices and the smart money was betting on the just introduced Alpha. Even Microsoft was supporting 3 different architectures for NT.
The MACH kernel was designed even earlier when the first wave of RISC was just comming in with the ARM and the SPARC.
The microkernel concept was very closely bound to the then fashionable RISC idea. The academics working on microkernels would not be as old fashioned to consider the limitations of the i86 series when designing an O/S. After all the whole point of RISC is build you silicon to the demands of the compiler and adding the O/S to that list is not a big step.
As to whether the Hurd based on Mach will outdo Linux, I am skeptical. After all the whole point of a microkernel is you keep it small and tight. Let us assume for the sake of argument that the Hurd does start to show positive advantages, then what, do we all move to the Hurd? I very much think not.
The first obstacle to any move to the Hurd is the vast installed base of Linux. The second is that the increased overhead of added RMS is far greater than the reduced overhead of a microkernel.
So if Hurd starts to show major earth shattering performance advantages, someone somewhere will hack up MACH-Linux. After all the majority of the Linux code is the support, packaging, device drivers etc. The actual kernel is pretty small and actual dependencies on the kernel architecture relatively few. OK so not an insignificant undertaking, but compared to the overhead of managing RMS trivial, but then again so would be recoding the whole of Win2k using punch cards.
We don't need to wait for the Hurd to see whether the microkernel offers a real advantage. Just benchmark an Alpha running Linux against an Alpha running the Mach based Digital Unix. My guess is that there will be no real difference since the disparity between VMS and Digital Unix was never vast (except on highly UNIX specific benchmarks).
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Yeh Hurd is great.. unless you want sound or partitions large enough to actually install anything.. Even ms-dos could handle sound and greater than 1 gig partitions..
I think I'll stick with debian/linux and wait for Hurd to get a little bit more mature
I glanced over the link you provided and wonder myself,
;-) and Hurd) are being
whether the synchronisation not automatically has to
be done when splitting $Application (including the OS)
onto multiple processing units?
Even think of 3D accelerating gfx cards; active ISDN
(I know few haven't been seen recently - mine is ISA-8).
What to do when it comes to 64-CPU systems? On a highly
loaded server with multiple multi-threaded server
processes even multi{ple,threaded} fs servers seem not
far away from reality.
The impact the report notes concentrates on the computer
architecture which is in use today, but slightly being
replaced by different approaches.
Remember, Linux is A current kernel for the GNU system,
whereas other kernels (Minix
designed yet.
My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And
dunno about "gnu", but linux certainly recognizes multiple controllers. Check out devfs - for example, my cdrom is /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target6/lun0/cd.
/dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s0 though.
It is more annoying to type than
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
I suppose because I don't like the entire GNU communistic philosophy and don't agree with stallman on just about everything... that makes me an idiot.
I didn't take the time to reply because it was an AC post, but since yours wasn't I guess I will make it a point to reply.
GNU is more than just a license and is more than just a way of thinking. GNU is about freedom. I think we also need to get a little something straight ... the GNU is much more than stallman, but for every great group everyone looks to the man on top, and in this case it happens to be stallman.
Americans and many other parts of the world live in a captilastic society, the only ones who whine about this are the ones that don't make the money. I have yet to hear a rich man complain about having too much money. Second if everything was free then there would be no driving force for innovation or success. The main reason communism fell, no reason to do more than the status-quo and even more reason to do less.
I'm going to take Eli's Cheesecake. I like Eli's cheesecake, but because I don't have the receipe I can't make my own so I have to go and buy Eli's or settle for something else. But Eli's is the best in my mind and I will stand for only Eli's. Now Eli's has a receipe that they themselves came up with, if they were an open source cheesecake company someone would take the receipe and make the cheesecake cheaper without taking anytime to create the perfect cheesecake. So why would I complain I would be getting the same great cheesecake for a lot less money, but where does that leave Eli's? The inventor is now screwed because he wanted to give back ... and at what cost he no longer has a business anymore because everyone and their brother is making the same product for less money.
Innovation dies, because now the receipe is out and there is no driving force to create a better cheesecake when there's already a working product to sell ...
So that's the open source aspect ... now lets hit the GNU aspect. If Eli's were to have licesened their receipe code under the Nabisco licesnse (which happens to have many fine products as well) ... would the product then be called the Nabisco Eli's Cheesecake? Well if you want to see things like RMS then ... yes ... it is now Nabisco Eli Cheesecake ... or NEC ... :-) ...
That's where I stand and that's what I believe. For things that people take the time to work on for the sole purpose of helping others out, then the world embraces the open source and elaborates on it. If it's a product that is new to the world and has a use for everyone then so be it ... the source stays closed and people make money ...
The argument that you can't make money off of opensource is a correct argument in essence.
no trademarks were harmed in this comment
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
hrm, my post was meant to be sarcastic since whatis.com didnt have any information bout it, and to be made out as a STUPID N* is always a treat.
-
RMS Running For GNOME Board Of Directors
-
GNOME Foundation Elections - Final Candidate List
- Stallman Responds To GNOME Questionaire
- Gnome Preliminary Election Results In
How was that? I see plenty of comments both for and against RMS. Your problem is that you don't construct any kind of intelligent criticism, but instead throw trollish arguments out like this and expect to be praised for it.I don't feel like searching for GNU/BSD arguments, but I can assure you there's plenty of pro-BSD comments that got very high mods. Do the search yourself, I've already wasted enough time on your flamebait.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
cp /dev/urandom > /dev/kmem works fool
He quoted something which was relevant, interesting and (mildly) amusing. The effort was in identifying that fact.
>not only can you _have_ your opinion, but
>you can voice it too.
Slashdot.org. Not slashdot.org.us. It's an international site, and there are many countries where the above is true.
Mind you, I agree entirely with your basic point.
Cheers,
Ian
I'd be interested in trying HURD out, but I don't want to (a) reboot my machine between HURD and Linux use; (b) buy a new box (my UPS is out of sockets...)
send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
See, GNU is not a license. (That's GPL (GNU Public License).) And while GNU is frequently used to refer to the Free Software movement this is not entirely correct.
GNU (GNU's Not Unix) is really a part of an OS. It provides libraries for basic functions for control of the computer. It also has a lot of small programs which are essential for having a usable computer. (cat, grep etc.)
You seem to confuse GNU with both the license and in your "Eli's cake analogy" with RMS himself. GNU is not a name of a person, neither is it a license.
Now to expand the AC's previous explaination:
Linux is a kernel. It makes it possible to use the processor in a shared enviroment. It also provides a lot of system specific commands. (Filesystem manipulation like "ls", "cd" and such are implemented in the kernel.)
GNU is the libraries and small programs around the kernel. As previously mentioned grep and cat are examples of these. If you didn't have these your computer would be pretty much useless.
Your GNU/Linux system has both of these in it. Technically you could probably call it "KDE/X/GNU/Linux" or something like that. But neither KDE nor X are required. You still have a usable system without them.
You can also, here demonstrated with the HURD, exchange one or both of the parts in GNU/Linux. If you change the kernel with e.g. HURD you get GNU/HURD. (And here consider that both GNU and HURD have been made by "the same people". So it's not that they want to "put their name on it".)
You could also exchange the GNU part with something else like TNG (TNG's Not GNU) (Yes, I just made that up.) You could then have TNG/Linux or TNG/HURD.
So to conclude:
GNU/Linux is not to "put a name on Linux".
GNU is not the name of the license. (That's GPL.)
GNU is does not refer to the people behind the project.
GNU is not an ideology. (That's Free Software.)
For more thoughts on this check www.gnu.org, there are some more philosphical essays on the topic there.
BTW I avoided to comment on your "Eli's cheesecake" example as it's not complete, and a pretty poor analogy. (And irrelevant to the GNU/Linux discussion.) But the biggest mistake you have made is to ignore the cost of ingredients and time to bake the cake. Also you ignore that you get some quality assurance and most likely a very nice cake when you buy it from Eli.
To quote a /. sig "GNU is like sex, better when RMS isn't involved." Many people embrace the open source movement and I myself am one of them, all of my public binaries I've ever made are open source, they happen to be GPL because it seemed like the best at the time. Reall I believe in the "I don't really care what you do with the code, but here it is anyways", which seems to be the model of the BSD license (in a very naive sorta way).
GNU would be a whole lot of nothing without linux, that's a fact ... Linux would also be a whole lot of nothing without GNU, that's a fact, but is Mandrake a GNU OS? No ... is Debian HURD a GNU OS? Maybe ...
It's all a matter of politics and politics seem to scare people morst of the time, FSF and GNU are the same thing I don't care what you or an essay says. Why are they the same thing, they both have the same leader. And yes because of that they are the same thing. GNU is an idea, but it is made through the people behind it ... without the supporters of GNU there would be no GNU so GNU is the people behind it.
This is like arguing whether a hacker is someone who intrudes in a system or someone who writes code. Granted every geek will tell you NO that's a script kiddie, but it wasn't until the word script kiddie was made that people started to defend the word hacker.
I wouldn't be so defensive, but being told I don't understand the GNU, GPL, FSF, or Linux tends to piss me off a bit when I have had contact with major players of all those fronts. So my posts reflect words straight from the horses mouth.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
It seems like every time I turn around someone is finding a way to bitch, moan, and complain about something. The GPL buys don't like the BSD license. The BSD guys don't like the GPL. *BSD users don't like Linux and vice versa. Some people call a particular OS "GNU/Linux" while others just call it "Linux." Now we get to have the monolithic vs. microkernel debate....all over agein.
I've pretty much come to the conclusion that most disputes that persist are in fact sources of entertainment or diversion rather than legitimate issues of importance. People get bored and engage in a high-tech version of the dispute from Gulliver's travels where two groups were fighting over which end of an egg should be cracked.
Let me give you all a little piece of advice. Think for yourself, form your own conclusions. It is not necessary that anyone agree with you, or that you agree with anyone else. Everyone is going to do exactly what they damn well please, including you, so quit yer bitching. Or at least find something more productive to discuss.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for open debates of issues. Its just that when those debates drag on forever and nothing gets resolved then they aren't serving any productive purpose. Instead they create division where none need occur.
Another thing to remember is that people are going to disagree on things. That is normal and not something to pick a fight over. Anytime I see a group of people in perfect, or near perfect, agreement on something it is a sign that people aren't thinking for themselves. Of course on the other hand when there is a group where no one agrees it is often the case that they are all just trying to disagree for its own sake. Neither situation is a good one.
Think for yourself and expect others to do the same. Sometimes you'll find agreement with another person. Sometimes you won't. Just because the two of you see things differently doesn't mean that only one of you is right, or that either of you is right for that matter. You've got to call 'em like you see 'em. If everyone were to do that the world would be a better place.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
That's because everyone thinks they are smarter and can do it better.
Please show me the location where context switching and task switching overheads are published properly (and officially by Intel). Please also take into account the indirect overhead of cache flushes (TLB and Trace Cache), and the cost of reestablishing the cache working sets. Oh, and don't forget to include measurements for various typical application scenarios. Also make sure to include the costs using different context switching techinques. (Did you know that using the systenter/sysexit instructions saves you a few thousand cycles compared to software interrupts on a Pentium 4?)
Nevertheless your argument does not hold for Free/ Open Source Software, in practice at least - as it just keeps getting better
- Derwen
http://fsfeurope.org/
You didn't actually bother to read my previous post, did you?
I think you misunderstood the point I was trying to express. I in no way inteded that RedHat is the only significant "Linux Distro", or that there is a conspiracy against any other distributions.
My point is that there is no Operating System distribution that can accurately be called a "Linux Distribution". It would not be appropriate to call RedHat an "Apache Distribution" just because Apache httpd is on the media. Apache and Linux are just packages included on the disk to enhance the usefulness of the system. Linux is a kernel, RedHat is one of many distributions of the GNU system.
If your posted email address is accurate, then I can assume that you are a freshmaker who is already very aware of this issue. The only logical assumtion, if this isn't "gnus" to you, is that you neglected to read most of my post before responding.
Happy Gregorian New Year!
-castlan
Didn't Tanenbaum (SP?) and Torvalds already have this conversation of monolithic kernel vs. microkernel based OS's? I had mklinux installed on one of my PowerMacs. I never pushed it performance wise, but it looked like a nice, working linux box when I had it up and running.
Feel free to believe so if that makes you happy. (Herregud for noen helvetes idioter der er rundt om her nå om dagen.)
You STILL haven't read any Intel documents, have you?
If you're referring to the Intel documents describing what the pure context switching costs (for some definition of "pure") in various application scenarios, I'm affraid the answer would be no. Give me a URL or an Order Number for these documents and I'll be happy to revoke my claim that these documents do not exist.
If you want to pretend you're at least kernel knowledgeable, you need to start there.
How brilliant. I would never have figured that I needed to actually read the processor specs before going about designing and implementing various kernels from scratch. Thank you very much. I must have been pretty lucky to get things right in the first place.
URLs? Order numbers?
URLs? Order Numbers? I know of no documents on the Intel site answering the questions of my previous posts. You obviously seem to do, but I guess you never actually bothered to find out what the documentation provided there really is.
I repeat: URLs? Order Numbers?
Apparently not (which answer are you referring to, by the way). I do know, however, that I am not able to prove that the documents in question do not exist. You, on the other hand, is in the position that it should be relatively easy to disprove me. Just show me the documents and I'll be happy to announce that you were right in the first place.