GNU/Hurd Delayed To Fix Disk Size, Serial I/O Limitations

gregger writes "This Infoworld article indicates that the GNU/Hurd is still waiting to stampede. Evidently they have to switch from the GNU Mach implementation they're using now to OSKit's Mach which will help them support faster serial I/O and larger hard discs. Currently GNU/Hurd will only support somewhere between 1 to 2 GB partitions."

Comments

Useful?

[Anonymous Coward]

This reminds me of those people who want to mathematically prove all their code. Interesting, but impractical.

Re:Useful?

[Anonymous Coward]

What, you mean computer scientists?

Re:Useful?

[Anonymous Coward]

The word you want is elucidate.

Re:Useful?

[1nfern0]

cmon, you can at leasst mod him up for not posting: FFPFPFPFPFPFPFpfppfpffpfffffffff wooooo FlICK PLIcK etc and mod me down, cause of course you will

GNU/Hurd

[KarateBob]

is GNU/Hurd related to linux? besides the GNU part?

Re:GNU/Hurd

[Anonymous Coward]

GNU *is* GNU/Linux. Except for this tiny itty-bitty kernel that some guy wrote, which we only took 19 years to get around to doing.

-RMS

Re:GNU/Hurd

[myowntrueself]

presumably theres
GNU/Linux
and
GNU/Hurd

Thing that bugs me about this is that the pace of hardware technology obsolescence is such that if it takes more than 2 months to develop a new OS, you can't go out and buy new (as opposed to second hand) hardware to run it on... because all the new hardware thats available is incompatible with what you were developing for.

I reckon PC hardware should follow the model of Soviet military technology, which is to say;
Refine existing technologies, don't introduce new, untested, technologies every freakin month!!!

Re:GNU/Hurd

[Anonymous Coward]

With all the pressure from RMS, Linus should have just gone ahead and trademarked GNU/Linux and sued RMS for TM violations if he ever tried to release a system with GNU in the name.

Re:GNU/Hurd

[evilviper]

Well, if you want to start that arguement.

Linux has nothing to do with Gnu. If you wanted to, you could make an OS using the Linux kernel & the BSD tools.

So, it's now the distros (e.g. RedHat) that are supposed to start throwing GNU in there. Of course, that would cause some user confusion when they go searching for this "GNU Linux" kernel.

Where does it end? What percentage of an OS's software has to come from a certain source that it must be included in all titles? Shall we call it RedHat Linux/GNU/XFree86/KDE ? Hey, the Gnu tools are replacable... XFree86 doesn't have any real competition, and so it more important than GNU.

What's that you say? rms is just a vain blowhard that will suck up publicity where ever he can get some? I'm sure he would disagree with that completely, and then go and complain about bitkeeper some more.

Man am I glad BSDs are better. In fact, rms thinks so too. Why else would he run FreeBSD on his server?

Re:GNU/Hurd

[pediddle]

Where does it end? What percentage of an OS's software has to come from a certain source that it must be included in all titles? Shall we call it RedHat Linux/GNU/XFree86/KDE ? Hey, the Gnu tools are replacable... XFree86 doesn't have any real competition, and so it more important than GNU.

I know this is just the same old flamewar being rehashed, but I really think you've made one of the clearest arguments I've heard so far.

Re:GNU/Hurd

[joe_bruin]

when me and richard m. stallman (the m stands for 'merryweather', did you know that?) started GNU/hurd back in 1908, we were out to replace the closed-internals of the international business machines (ibm) automatic punch card tabulator, which was at use at the time in the department of the census (where me and rich were summer interns). those machines had a 2mm steel case sealed with canadian metric square screws (wherever you call them, please don't correct me). since nobody had any metric screwdrivers at the time, much less square ones, we had no access to the internal cogs and wheels of the tabulator. we definitely did not want to punch through the casing, because that would void our warranty and service contract, and we would have to contract ibm to build us a second tabulator (which cost nearly 200 american dollars, and took 7 months to assemble).

when it (frequently) broke down, we had to call an ibm machinist to come open the case for us and oil the flywheel or unjam the transverse flying arm on the card-feeder. as you can imagine, this seemed hardly the ideal solution, because usually all it needed was a little bit of work that me and rich could easily perform (even through we were not trained calculating machine operators).
long story short, we starting working on the GNU/hurd tabulator. the centerpiece to our system was the pipelined card loader, which could load the next punchcard while the calculating engine was stilll churning on the previous card. we had also designed the system so that you could have dual loading mechanisms, so that one would always be running if the other jammed. rich always insisted that we should publish the blueprints for our machine, so that other people in our tabulation club could also build similar machines, and help us with the design. to me the whole idea sounded a bit bolshevik, but richard seemed intent to follow through with it, and i didn't mind so much. honestly, i didn't believe he would ever be able to publish anything, given that his handwriting was quite terrible (although he was working on a new type of typewriter, the electro-macs so that he would be somewhat more legible).

5 years later, when i was conscripted to join the great war in europe, we had a nearly complete tabulator in hand. we had solved nearly all the problems of page clipping and bending that were present in our earlier builds, and our machine could run at a rate of well over 70 cards per minute (compared to the ibm's 42). however, we never completed the loader fully, and the latest model i saw could only hold 3 cards on the loading queue, making it much less than useful (however promising).

i've lost contact with rich during the war years. i had always assumed he's been killed in action. anyway, i'm glad to see he's still going strong with our GNU/hurd tabulator, and wish him well on it. hopefully it will be done before my great grandkids graduate college.

Re:GNU/Hurd

[corbettw]

"when me and richard m. stallman (the m stands for 'merryweather', did you know that?) started GNU/hurd back in 1908, we were out to replace the closed-internals of the international business machines (ibm) automatic punch card tabulator..."

You forgot to add that you were both wearing onions on your belts, which was the fashion at the time.

Re:GNU/Hurd

[lemkebeth]

Except XFree86 is replaceable. However, you would have to write your own windowing system like Apple did.

Re:GNU/Hurd

[Anonymous Coward]

SkyOS has their own windowing system. BeOS did/does. NextStep did. geos did. Those new amiga things do. It doesn't take a genius to write a windowing system. But it does take a retard (a whole lot of them) to stick with XWindows.

Re:GNU/Hurd

[npietraniec]

You better not, that would really piss me off!

Re:GNU/Hurd

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that the only people who'd give no more than half a shit what you run really don't give even a quarter of a shit what you run.

I can tell you this with confidence because I was an English major.

Re:GNU/Hurd

[hackerjoe]

Linux has nothing to do with Gnu. If you wanted to, you could make an OS using the Linux kernel & the BSD tools.

...except that you'd still need gnu libc to run those tools and gcc to compile them. you can easily find replacements for the gnu textutils or for bash, but libc is kinda essential.

on the other hand it's easy to see why people drop the gnu part of gnu/linux, and it has nothing to do with credit or attribution; they're just picking out the most identifying feature of an os that otherwise has no name.

gcc and gnu libc are critical (and incidentally account for about as much source code as the linux kernel last I checked), but all libc's and cc's aspire to work according to the same standard; so saying that your os was compiled on gcc or uses gnu libc isn't helpful to someone trying to grok its major characteristics.

Re:GNU/Hurd

[zapfie]

Not that I know of, but check out minutils: http://www.skarnet.org/software/minutils/

He had similiar motivations.. except instead of trying to piss people off, he is trying to piss RMS off.

Re:GNU/Hurd

[Anonymous Coward]

rms and his GNU/cronies are who i meant by 'people'.

Re:GNU/Hurd

[Zalgon 26 McGee]

Is there a "+1, Classic Simpsons" moderation option?

Re:GNU/Hurd

[aardvarkjoe]

Are there any gnu-free linux distros available?

Actually, I did the linux from scratch thing with non-GNU utilities, just for fun, and came up with a usable system. I didn't spend the time to get X and everything running, but I understand that it's possible.

The only real requirement is that you use GCC to build the software, but you don't need any GNU software to run a Linux system.

Re:GNU/Hurd

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Not true, friend. There are alternatives even to the GNU C library for those who object to RMS's politics.

And whether or not one uses the GNU C compiler is irrelevant. Code compiled with GCC is not part of the GNU project, nor it is required to be licensed with the GNU license. If you prefer, though, you can use Intel's C compiler, or Metrowerks's, or whichever compiler will work with your target architecture.

And you're mistaken about one more thing. The reason people drop the "GNU/" part of the name "GNU/Linux" is because "Linux," as has been pointed out again and again here by a persistent AC, is a registered trademark. Calling anything "GNU/Linux" without Linus Torvald's permission is infringement, and it's illegal. The name of the operating system is "Linux," and unless Torvalds says otherwise, that's the end of that.

Re:GNU/Hurd

[dvdeug]

The reason people drop the "GNU/" part of the name "GNU/Linux" is because "Linux," [...] is a registered trademark

Bull. That has nothing to do with it. It's all about personal preference. If it really was a legal thing, don't you think that Debian GNU/Linux (around for 6 years, and holding over a 10% share of Linux users) would be concerned? (Yes, the name is Debian GNU/Linux, and yes, if you study their history, you'll know they've been diligent about crossing their legal t's.)

Calling anything "GNU/Linux" without Linus Torvald's permission is infringement, and it's illegal.

Good thing Linus Torvald gave RMS permission, then, isn't it?

The name of the operating system is "Linux," and unless Torvalds says otherwise,

And what gives Linus Torvalds the right to say what the name of the OS is? He wrote a kernel; a cast of thousands wrote the rest, and it is assembled into an operating system by at least a dozen different groups.

Re:GNU/Hurd

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Good thing Linus Torvald gave RMS permission, then, isn't it?

That never happened, did it?

And what gives Linus Torvalds the right to say what the name of the OS is?

The United States Patent and Trademark Office. The trademark serial number is 74560867. Feel free to look it up at http://www.uspto.gov.

Re:GNU/Hurd

[QuaZar666]

ok did you not notice the initials on that.. RMS. it was a freaking joke.

Re:GNU/Hurd

[dvdeug]

That never happened, did it?

Yes, it did.
http://www.tlug.jp/docs/linus.html

And what gives Linus Torvalds the right to say what the name of the OS is?

The United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Nope. That gives Linus Torvalds control over the word Linux. It doesn't give him any right over what the name of the OS is, if it doesn't include Linux. If it does include Linux, then GNU/Linux is as good as Red Hat Linux or Corel Linux; Linus has given explicit permission for all those names.

Re:GNU/Hurd

[dvdeug]

If you prefer, though, you can use Intel's C compiler, or Metrowerks's, or whichever compiler will work with your target architecture.

Not for Linux. Linux compiles under one compiler - GCC. The kernel depends on many GCC extensions.

Re:GNU/Hurd

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Oh, dude, you pretty much stuck your foot in it here. As evidence that Torvalds gave Stallman permission to use the name "GNU/Linux," you cited this article. Did you read it? Here's the salient portion.

HY: About the GNU/Linux argument; have you talked with Richard Stallman about this?

Linus: rms asked me if I minded the name before starting to use it, and I said "go ahead".

Sounds good, right? But the thing is, it didn't stop there. Torvalds goes on:

I didn't think it would explode into the large discussion it resulted in, and I also thought that rms would only use it for the specific release of Linux that the FSF was working on rather than "every" Linux system.

I never felt that the naming issue was all that important, but I was obviously wrong judging by how many people felt very strongly about it. So these days I just tell people to call it just plain "Linux" and nothing more.

(Emphasis mine.)

So Torvalds, who has exclusive control over the name "Linux," as used to describe computer operating system software, initially granted permission for the use of the name "GNU/Linux," but he and Stallman had different ideas of how that variation on the "Linux" trademark was to be used. In this interview, Torvalds makes it clear that he does not approve of the use of the mark "GNU/Linux" to describe "'every' Linux system." Consequently, the name "GNU/Linux" is an infringement on Torvalds's trademark.

If you want to call the operating system "Foonix," you're free to do so. You can call it whatever you want-- to the extent that you don't violate anybody's copyright. But you can't dilute or otherwise distort the trademark "Linux" without permission, which Torvalds explicitly denied in that interview.

Thanks for pointing out that article. It makes the issue even more crystal-clear to me.

Re:GNU/Hurd

[amccall]

The Intel guys got Linux compiling on their compiler several months ago. Look it up. The patch was small, and it should already be in development kernels.

So, replacement for gcc, replacement for libc(bsd/other libc's mentioned), replacement for all other standard unix utilities.

As a side note several other OS projects use the GNU compiler to create their binaries. Should the be called GNU/Projects as well, even though they use few if any other GNU components? And I thought GNU and the FSF was about freedom....

Re:GNU/Hurd

[dvdeug]

So these days I just tell people to call it just plain "Linux" and nothing more.

That doesn't mean he sues people who don't call it just Linux; that means he encourages people to call it just Linux.

Torvalds explicitly denied

The normal way to explicitly deny use of a trademark is through your lawyer.

Consequently, the name "GNU/Linux" is an infringement on Torvalds's trademark.

And as I mentioned before, Debian GNU/Linux has existed for six years, with Torvald knowing about it. To this day, SPI has failed to get a letter from Torvald's lawyers about the issue. Letting someone use your trademark in business for years with your full knowledge is not what you do if you mean to specifically deny that use.

Honestly, I'm not sure the Linux trademark is valid anymore. I'm not familar with any attempt to police the mark, and there's a million different distributions called Linux with no quality control, which are two major issues in keeping a trademark.

Re:GNU/Hurd

[Anonymous Coward]

If there is, there should also be a "-1, Overused Simpsons Reference" to mod down the excessive "in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics" quotes which seem to pop up almost every week, 10 at a time.

Re:GNU/Hurd

[Twirlip of the Mists]

That doesn't mean he sues people who don't call it just Linux; that means he encourages people to call it just Linux.

Sorry, you must have misread. The interview didn't say "I just encourage people to call it just plain 'Linux.'" It said "I just tell people to call it just plain 'Linux.'" He owns the trademark. If he says, "Call it just plain 'Linux,'" then that's what you have to do. It's not a question of encouraging. It's black-and-white.

The normal way to explicitly deny use of a trademark is through your lawyer.

Nope. Trademark licensing is a business transaction, not a legal one. Unless the license is part of a larger contract negotiation-- which is often, but not always, the case-- there's no need for lawyers to be involved.

And as I mentioned before, Debian GNU/Linux has existed for six years...

Do you have any information on licensing agreements between the Debian organization and Torvalds? (It's Torvalds, by the way, not Torvald.) Is there any evidence to indicate that the Debian organization does not have permission to use the name "GNU/Linux" from Torvalds? In fact, isn't it true that the aforementioned interview contains information that strongly suggests that they may?

Torvalds said, "rms asked me if I minded the name before starting to use it, and I said 'go ahead'. ...I also thought that rms would only use it for the specific release of Linux that the FSF was working on." This indicates that Torvalds clearly has no problem licensing the use of the name "Linux" as "GNU/Linux" with respect to a specific distribution. His objection is to the FSF's attempted use of "GNU/Linux" to describe any and all Linux operating system releases. Because the Debian organization releases uses the name "GNU/Linux" only to describe "the specific release of Linux" that they distribute, it's clear from his own statements that Debian's use of the "Linux" trademark is within the limits of Torvalds's unpublished guidelines.

Honestly, I'm not sure the Linux trademark is valid anymore.

It is. While it's true that a failure to defend one's trademark can be grounds for denying legal action to protect that trademark, it is not true that one's trademark becomes invalid through lack of litigation. Torvalds's trademark is valid until challenged in and annulled by a court of law.

Re:GNU/Hurd

[dvdeug]

If he says, "Call it just plain 'Linux,'" then that's what you have to do. It's not a question of encouraging. It's black-and-white.

I'm sure it's black and white to you. I'm also sure that those of us inside the community understand that he really doesn't care, and has the trademark only as a formality.

According to Marcus Brinkmann:

Note that Linus did explicitely say that he does not want to enforce the
Linux trademark he owns, so this is a different pair of shoes.

Trademark licensing is a business transaction, not a legal one.

A signed letter, then. An interview with a third party is not the way that business decisions are communicated.

Re:GNU/Hurd

[Anonymous Coward]

These days you could use the Intel compiler (lcc) instead of GCC. It is possible to build Linux kernels with lcc, so I hear.

Re:GNU/Hurd

[Anonymous Coward]

Twirlip, Will you stop it? Not only don't you have a clue about trademarks and licensing, but you don't seem to understand any of the technology either.

On top of that your constant logic flaws make my head hurt.

Also, you are living in a dream world.

Re:GNU/Hurd

[kjd]

Slashdot opinions by third parties do not indicate the real-life stance of the FSF. You can use GCC to compile whatever you want, and name it whatever you like.

Re:GNU/Hurd

[evilviper]

I'm well aware of that... It's just a subject that annoyed me too much to ignore it.

Don't you think a conversation would start if someone had posted this:

Abortion is okay

--God

Joking or otherwise, the topic was brought up.

Re:GNU/Hurd

[Wesley Everest]

It's kinda funny. Linus says he doesn't see what the big deal is about names -- people generally use his name to refer to distributions built around his kernel, and he's happy with that.

But then big bad self-important Richard Stallman comes along and says that given that Linux wouldn't exist if it weren't for the GNU project, and given that much of the software included in Linux distributions is a product of the GNU project, and given that most of the software included uses the GNU license, the system as a whole should share credit with the GNU project and call it GNU/Linux.

Note that there is no suggestion to name things Richarix or Stallix. Anybody else see the irony? I mean I have great respect for both Stallman and Torvalds, and I think they have both made great contributions. I even respect both of their views on the naming of Linux vs. GNU/Linux. But, really, if you're going to whine about self-important people, it seems to me that it would be easier to make a case that Torvalds is being egotistical for insisting that the system be named only after himself, with no other people or projects sharing the credit.

If anything, you could say that Stallman only cares about promoting his pet project, while Torvalds only cares about promoting himself. Of course, you'd be wrong to suggest such a thing, since both of them spend more time creating software than promoting a name for it... (as opposed to many people who post on slashdot)

Re:GNU/Hurd

[xmda]

If people had done something more useful than discussing who is right and who is wrong on this GNU/Linux vs Linux naming issue, bandwidth had been saved and probably more great stuff produced.

Umm, okay...

[stevenbdjr]

Can someone please explain the relevancy of this project to me now? 1 to 2 GB partitions? What's that, one partition per user directory?

Re:Umm, okay...

[aussersterne]

My home directory (which only contains material back to '98, all else is archived on QIC, which I can't even read any more) is already 6GB, and that's just mail and documents -- all of my images and sound files are stored elsewhere.

No wonder I don't use Hurd.

I think the Hurd is a nice, interesting CS project, but there isn't enough of a pragmatic influence amongst its developers ranks to make it actually useful to anyone.

Re:Umm, okay...

[Anonymous Coward]

6 Gig of text. . . I am sure that you need all of that. Clean up your shit!

Re:Umm, okay...

[Usquebaugh]

Nothing I'd guess. So go back to your XP machine and quit worrying about it.

Not every project has to have a purpose. Or be useful. Some people think it's a good thing to do so off they go.

Personally I think Plan9 is the way forward from unix. But I'm not going to rubbish the hurd project.

Re:Umm, okay...

[operagost]

20 years of development and Minix 1.5 is still more sophisticated. And runs on an Atari ST!

Hurd delayed?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm shocked! SHOCKED!

Delayed???

[Servo]

HURD has been in the works for over 20 years. This is starting to sound like "delays" on the Big Dig.

Re:Delayed???

[1010011010]

And after "20 years," they switch to someone elses' microkernel...

Re:Delayed???

[gmack]

I actually watched Stallman speak in Montreal recently. One interesting tidbit was that he still seems dumbfounded about the fact that the Linux kernel beat them into production even though one of the advantages of microkernel is supposed to be ease of design and the fact that mach had half of the work done already.

Re:Delayed???

[Servo]

The biggest issue is that Stallman is an idealist. Torvalds just wanted a working Unix-line OS.

Re:Delayed???

[Anonymous Coward]

Er, wasn't the kernel the only missing piece of the GNU operating system? And they swap out the kernel NOW??

For awhile there, I was willing to give the GNU/Hurd developers' sanity the benefit of the doubt.

Re:Delayed???

[Zeinfeld]

I actually watched Stallman speak in Montreal recently. One interesting tidbit was that he still seems dumbfounded about the fact that the Linux kernel beat them into production even though one of the advantages of microkernel is supposed to be ease of design and the fact that mach had half of the work done already.

I have to think that the Hurd is a case of following the fashion rather than evaluating the microkernel technology on its merits.

There are lots of folk out there who will blather on at great length about the merits of kernel design for absolutely no other reason than they think it makes them look clever.

I have not done anything at the O/S level since writing one ten years ago (unless you count the Web as an O/S). At that time Mach was flavor of the month because OSF and Next had used it as the basis of their operating system and Cutler had used a lot of the concepts of Mach to design his follow on operating system to VMS. Then Rashid joined Cutler at Microsoft in a very high profile move.

So yes microkernels were flavor of the month ten years ago. However the reason why they were flavor of the month had more to do with the politics and problems at the time.

OSF was trying to build a kernel quickly to compete with System V. Microsoft was building Windows NT to get to market as fast as possible. Microkernels were touted as the equivalent of RISC in CPUs, a design that allowed for shorter development time and hence faster to market.

Microsoft had another issue, they wanted to be able to emulate other O/S. In particular Posix so they could sell in the federal market. They also wanted to be able to migrate VMS to run on WNT at a later date as a subsystem. This is actually in the works now and will take place when HP transitions from Alpha to Itanium on the high end server line. One of the reasons Microsoft was keen to do this is that Cutler and his principal staff had left Dec after Dec cancelled the Prism project, Cutler's objective stated at the time was to make Dec have to pay for the O/S they could have had for free. At the time Dec was bigger than Microsoft.

There are advantages to microkernels, but the NT design has not been pure microkernel for some time. In order to get acceptable performance on early hardware they had to allow the display drivers to run in kernel mode.

The problem that I think will prevent HURD ever working is that to build a real O/S you have to really understand the reasons behind the principles you follow and break them when necessary. RMS is unfortunately a prisoner of many dogmatic beliefs which once fixed he simply will not abandon regardless of the evidence.

Linus may or may not have known what he was doing when he had the argument with Andy Tannenbaum, but he made the right decision. Andy has written a lot of good books that are widely used as text books, I don't know if people like Cutler, Rashid, Hoare and Co would rate him as being in the front rank. It is the same situation in most fields, everyone has heard of Bruce Schneier, fewer have heard of Ron Rivest and only people in the field tend to know names like Paul Kocher (SSL 3.0, the one that works), Butler Lampson (ACLS, lotsa stuff), Clark (end to end principle), Bellovin (firewalls), Schiller (IETF Security Area director).

Oftopic: Mark Goldston, CEO of United Online (Juno/blue light) is a clueless dweeb, he just tried to tell Mark Haynes on CNBC that cable modem router boxes are not a threat to his business as few people can afford them... Not only are WiFi cable routers $100 at frys they will be built into the cable modems soon. So either he is uninformed (unlikely) or another lying CEO.

Re:Delayed???

[abigor]

I had no idea about the VMS emulation plans in the NT kernel. Excellent post, thanks.

Re:Delayed???

[Zeinfeld]

I had no idea about the VMS emulation plans in the NT kernel. Excellent post, thanks.

It isn't emulation, the next version of VMS is Windows NT. Basically VMS will become a WNT service in the same way POSIX and Windows are currently layered.

No idea how much this will cost, most likely quite a bit more than WNT. However VMS is available for non commercial use effectively for free. You just have to join DECUS user group - the US version is expensive but there are foreign chapters that are free.

Re:Delayed???

[Archfeld]

port VMS to run on NT ? Didn't they just announce the END of the support cycle and the dropping of if as a product. Checking with our DEC^H^H^H COMPAQ^H^H^H^H^H, HP rep he seems to follow the same line of thought. I can find several references to your point on the web but we've been told VMS is dead. According to M$ life cyclepage http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle.mspx NT is entering extended only support as of June 30, 2003, and end of life cycle is 1 year later. Hardly the kind of project to commit lots of resources to.

Re:Delayed???

[Anonymous Coward]

> In order to get acceptable performance on early hardware they had to allow the display drivers to run in kernel mode.

AFAIK, displays drivers ran in kernel mode in NT3.51. What they did was worse: *GDI* run into kernel mode since NT4.0.

--fred

cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope it will be able to run the new Mosaic software. Have you guys seen that? It's like Gopher but with you can add pictures, change the font size, etc.

Re:cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck that was funny. ROTFLMAO.

Re:cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, it'll never take off. After all, why would I want to look at pictures over the Internet?

Re:cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

are you kidding? do you have a dick?

Re:cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

why do you want to see pictuers of his dick? to go with your collection of goatse.cx images?

Re:cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know which is funnier... your post, or CANCER.

Re:cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

depending on the size of his dick, GNU/HURD may or may not be able to handle to size.

Re:cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

My vote goes for the lymphoma! Toke it down, hizzo.

Re:cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, that's fucking hilarious. Good post!

Re:cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I even heard this Mosaic software will support precise page layouts and rich gui form design element for platform independant distributed applications. Whoops, I'm getting ahead of myself. We've been looking at the same dame HTML for years.

Oh yeah, there's no way any technology could ever catch up with the pace of progress of a technological and financial juggernaut that's free to innovate. (Cough)

Re:cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard they're going to delay it until they can bundle it with Duke Nukem Forever...

Re:cool!

[paladin_tom]

This isn't the right way to measure the "goodness" of a system. The Hurd has concepts that are actually innovative.

If you're going to say that the Hurd sucks because it doesn't support some piece of hardware or software, then *damn*, Linux really sucks... and it did even more so at version 0.2. Gee, what am I doing... where's a Windows box? Win 98 must obviously be superior to all these Free/Open Source systems, with all the hardware and software it supports.

Re:cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, because who needs things like:

CDROM DRIVES
3D Video cards
Sound cards
USB

I mean, those things aren't very useful.

Re:cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

actually I agree with the grandparent.

IMHO Hurd is more of a testing system than any sort of usefull os. then again my views differ wildly from RMS's about prety much everything.

Re:cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

there's more than one picture on that site? you mean you actually looked around?

sicko

Re:cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the PROPER way to measure the goodness of a system is by a simple qualitative measure know as...

wait for it..

*B*F*I* the BEARD FULLNESS INDEX

Let's compare the major players in our discussion:

HURD - Richard Stallman has a rich full beard. So.. BFI_stallman = BFI_hurd = 10

WINDOWS - ever seen a picture of that Paul Allen dude when he was younger? BEARD! What about Bill Gates? Well, he always looked like a faggot or an old ugly woman, no facial hair. So...
BFI_allen = 7,
BFI_gates = -1, and therefore it follows that
BFI_windows = (7 - 1)/2 = 3.

LINUX - Linus is beardless (but nowhere near as faggly as Gates) .. Alan Cox on the other hand .. whew. He gets an 5.6 on the beard-o-meter, due to straggliness. Therefore:
BFI_torvalds = 0,
BFI_cox = 5.6, and therefore,
BFI_linux = 2.8

Now, clearly, beards indicate intellectuals who want to hide their faces from society. everybody knows that. that's why all professors have them.

So it logically follows that the LOWEST BFI will yield the most POPULAR and USABLE operating system. To recap our examples:

BFI_hurd = 10
BFI_windows = 3
BFI_linux = 2.8

Therefore, clearly the winner is Linux, with WIndows a close second. Unfortunately, Stallman pushes the HURD's BFI off the chart and out of the public eye. Sorry, Dicky!

Re:cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that's comedy!

Re:cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

And by "not" I mean "now"

Re:cool!

[donscarletti]

Inovative? It seems to me that hurd is just a server layer built above the MACH microkernel. What is so original about that? I see hundreds of non-monolithic kernels (BeOS and Windows to name a couple) I see only one monolithic kernel, LINUX. Hurd advocates seem to claim the fact that their kernel is split into bits as it's major selling point, so do BeOS users. Hurd advocates rave on about their Object Orientated Design and extendability. But so do BeOS zealots. So the two main selling points have allready been done.

I think reaserecting the idea of a monolithic kernel in the nineties was more inovative then just following the general trends of woosy componant based kernels. I also find the fact that hurd is based on the frigging MACH microkernel (built by Carnegie Mellon University) as conclusive proof that it was not original. In fact the hurd kernel is really the MACH microkernel (the rest is just a layer of servers on top) and that in turn is just a recoding of someone else's kernel therefore it is not new, it is not original it is the same old thing that has been pumped out by NeXT and Apple and anyone else who has used the MACH kernel.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against MACH, it is just not original, that's all.

LINUX is original. Although LINUX was built to be a little like MINIX it was 1.Monolithic, 2. Heavily optimised and 3. Successful. all of those things do not apply to minix.

When Linus Torvalds wrote Linux he was critisised for making it monolithic because it was not the done thing of the day. It was seen as simple and antiquated. Now look where it is!

I think it is unfair for people to critisise LINUX in favor of HURD. Just because something is simple and monolithic does not mean it is bad.

Re:cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

NT doesn't support USB, and it didn't seem to do any harm to its sales!

Re:cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

>no facial hair

Never trust anyone with facial hair. They're either trying to hide something, or they're probably a dodgy foreign/religious type. More importantly, they'll look faintly ridiculous.

Re:cool!

[thesadmac]

You really don't know anything about operating systems do you?

Re:cool!

[AftanGustur]

This isn't the right way to measure the "goodness" of a system. The Hurd has concepts that are actually innovative.

It's not that I think you don't belive your statement yourself, it's just that companies have been claiming the same thing since I remember.

So, please name a few examples of what's innovative in Hurd.

Re:cool!

[Milican]

And.. what my friend would you call modules in Linux... monowha?... thought so...

JOhn

Re:cool!

[syylk]

The Hurd has concepts that are actually innovative.

Which ones? The 2GB partitions or support for 16550A's speeds?

Linux was "obsoleted" by Tanenbaum upon inception. Hurd is conceptually innovative. Duke Nukem Forever is to be released real soon now. News at 11.

*yawn*

Re:cool!

[SerpentMage]

Actually Windows is a monolithic kernel. It used to be non-monolithic. But once Windows NT 3.51 hit graphics, etc moved back into the kernel. The problem was performance and MS simply bit the bullet and said, screw it lets go back to what works....

Re:cool!

[R.Caley]

The Hurd has concepts that are actually innovative.

Actually, now I come to think of it, thinking of the Hurd as a piece of conceptual art rather than an operating system does improve my feelings about it. Over her a pcikled shark, over there a toy operating system.

Concepts butter no parsnips.

Re:cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi!

You know the HURD as a whole is well and truly fucked when a comment like the above is made and it doesn't even get modded down!

Cheers,
GNU/Wolfgang

Re:cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, that's because IT WAS RELEASED IN, WHAT, 1996?

Please, smarten up.

Re:cool!

[erikdalen]

they still run in kernelspace, not in userspace like in a microkernel. so it makes linux a bit more modular, but not less monolithic. /Erik

Re:cool!

[Gleef]

AftanGustur asks:

So, please name a few examples of what's innovative in Hurd.

Let's see:

• Translators: userspace programs programs to act as a file or a hierarchical directory. Device drivers, filesystems, etc are implemented as translators in Hurd.
• A security structure to allow arbitrary users to install arbitrary translators as needed to the system without compromising security or system integrity.
• Multiple authentication servers, allowing different parts of the system to have completely different security models.
• A very flexible interprocess communication model.
• Many other, more subtle, innovations I don't have time to list.

Basically, the Hurd offers a much more flexible operating environment, one that can move beyond most of the restrictions of *nix, while still looking like Unix to the users and developers.

Much more detailed information can be found at http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/docs.html.

Re:cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Hurd has concepts that are actually innovative.


10+ years ago when it was started ... ummm ... not even then (think NeXT)

10+ years from now when it finally gets released? Nah. (Not unless you consider taking 20+ years to get to 1.0 as an innovative concept)

Re:cool!

[TaliesinWI]

A quote from a long ago "What life would be like if operatings systems drove your car":

"Taligent/Pink - You walk to the store with Ricardo Montalban, who tells you how wonderful it will be when he can fly you there in his Learjet."

The long and short of it is, it's not innovative until people can _use it_. Linux was at 0.12 in February 1992 and at 1.0 in March 1994, and by then Slackware 1.0 (pretty much the first complete Linux distribution) had been out for almost a year. Yes, all based on GNU tools, blah blah woof woof, but nevertheless it was _useable_. The ISP I once worked for was running all Linux servers by early 1996. Not bad for an OS/kernel that was less than four years old.

Don't pull the "But other OSs are monolithic kernels, and ours is a microkernel!" rhetoric. That's like those old Apple "its better because it's RISC!" ads that had to get pulled after a few short months because of the backlash. Most users don't care what's going on that far under the hood of their server, they just want it to meet their computing needs.
I think the Hurd team is finding out the hard way that if you take long enough when developing something, paradigms have shifted and what your on the verge of delivering is irrelevant if not completely obsolete. Then, you start over, and then act surprised in two more years when people _still_ don't care. Telling us in 1998 (or even 2000) that "Hurd is here, but there's a 2GB partition limit for now" would not have been nearly as big of a deal, because it would gotten the OS out there and have people pounding on it, and other parts of the OS would get updated and improved while the 2GB limit was being fixed. Telling us in late 2002 that "Hurd still isn't here because we've finally realized that 2GB partition limits are not appropriate" is winning the award for obvious statement.

Don't tell me how cool it's going to be. _Show me how cool it actually is_. Then I will lavish you with praise, hire young nubile virgin women to lick your toes, and proclaim you the next great innovator.

Oh, and by the way, HERE is the (IMHO) far more meaningful and potentially important section of the article (paragraphs condensed by me):

"The FSF is also modifying the GNU General Public License (GPL), though the fundamental principles will remain unchanged, according to Stallman. 'We have looked at, for example, adding a clause that explicitly states that you give a patent license when you redistribute the software,' Stallman added. FSF also plans to incorporate into the GNU GPL a section covering use of software on a computer network. This new section is likely to be based on a similar section in the Affero GPL adopted by San Francisco-based Affero Inc. The Affero GPL requires anyone modifying a software program to give immediate access by HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) to the complete source code of the modified software to other users interacting with the software on the network, if the original program had a provision for this kind of access."

I would expect _that_ to cause far more discussion on Slashdot than "This just in - GNU/Hurd still isn't out".

Re:cool!

[Milican]

Oh ok, I thought modular was diametrically opposed to monolithic. Thanks for the info.

JOhn

Re:cool!

[infernow]

I remember Mosaic. We had it in elementary school. Now I'm in college, and Mosaic is still better/as good as IE.

Re:cool!

[Christopher Doopov]

I hope it will be able to run the new Mosaic software. Have you guys seen that? It's like Gopher but with you can add pictures, change the font size, etc.

Great joke! It's so funny, because GNU Hurd design is so outdated! No innovation at all! Now, Linux -- that's what I call innovation! Who the hell modded it up?

Re:cool!

[Ayende Rahien]

No, still micro-kernel, even if the GUI run in kernel space.

Re:cool!

[mindstrm]

Really. That's interesting.

Most of us measure how good a system is by whether or not it use useful to us.

Linux was very useful to many, and those people wanted more, so they kept adding more support and more applications.

Currently, hurd is not useful.
It has some neat features, in theory. but it's not useful to me or the guy next to me.

So what good is it?

Will they have to change the name?

[TheConfusedOne]

OSKit/HURD?

Re:Will they have to change the name?

[paladin_tom]

Actually, when distinguishing between implementations of the Hurd on different microkernels, we ususally say Hurd/Mach versus Hurd/L4. This is consistent with GNU/Linux and GNU/Hurd, ie. HigherLayer/LowerLayer.

OSKit-Mach is just a superior implementation of Mach, so we'd still call it Hurd/Mach if we needed to make a distinction.

Real improvements to the Hurd will come with the eventual port to the microkernel which is much superior to Mach (and the answer to current anti-microkernel FUD).

Re:Will they have to change the name?

[Arandir]

So in other words, when the GNU project finally produces a complete operating system with all the operating environment trimmings, the correct name will be "The GNOME/GNU/Hurd/Mach System"?

Re:Will they have to change the name?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, because the G in Gnome is already GNU.

Gnu Network Object Model Environment

Re:Will they have to change the name?

[photon317]

Why eventual port? They're switching Machs right now, why not switch to l4ka right away?

Re:Will they have to change the name?

[Leimy]

Here here!

No doubt a good microkernel is a nontrivial thing to write but it can be done, has been done and as far as I can tell Mach isn't it :)

Even Mac OS X seem to have some fairly major latency issues and it isn't even a micorkernel [though it does have Mach inside]. I think mach tries to do too many things and has too many of its own system calls to be easily done well.

L4 compliant microkernels [L4 is a spec and there are implementations of that spec... like Fiasco,/A>] conentrate on doing only a few things very well.

If indeed the port of the Hurd servers ever happens to go to L4... I will be sure to try it out but as it stands now GNU/Hurd seems to have the same basic problems it did back 1998 when I last dared to run it.

Re:Will they have to change the name?

[Leimy]

Type-o's suck ass don't they? :)

Re:Will they have to change the name?

[erikdalen]

switching machs will produce a usable system with a few months work. while switching to l4 takes at least 10 times more work.

Re:Will they have to change the name?

[paladin_tom]

GNOME and Hurd are both part of the GNU system. That would be like calling Mac OSX "Aqua/MacOSX/FreeBSD/Mach".

(Betcha' weren't expecting a serious answer, eh?) ;-)

Re:Will they have to change the name?

[Christopher Doopov]

So in other words, when the GNU project finally produces a complete operating system with all the operating environment trimmings, the correct name will be "The GNOME/GNU/Hurd/Mach System"?

Will they change the name? Yes, they will change the name to GNU -- finally ending this whole farse of such a lame jokes like yours, as well as this childish ego-masturbation of Linus. Is this the answer you were expecting?

Re:Will they have to change the name?

[Arandir]

If GNOME is a part of the GNU operating system, then what operating system does KDE belong to? Methinks your definition of operating system is much too broad...

Re:Will they have to change the name?

[paladin_tom]

GNOME is part of the GNU Project, KDE isn't. If you look at the GNU coding standards, they'd like any GUI interface to a GNU app to be GTK.

Nothing against KDE, it's very good and I don't like it when people flame it, but GNOME is the "GNU-Brand" desktop.

Re:Will they have to change the name?

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I've heard/read Miguel de Icaza has NOT given control of the GNOME project over to GNU, even though RMS wants to make anything he sees that's GPL'd under GNU control. I could be wrong, so please correct me.

whoops

[seanw]

The release of a production version of the free GNU operating system (OS) has been delayed beyond the end of the year, as the current development version of the system does not support large disk partitions and high speed serial I/O (input-output), according to Richard Stallman

is it just me, or does it sound like they had it all ready to ship, date planned and everything, and then someone pointed out that it was lacking some major I/O features/performance, and the developers collectively slapped their foreheads and went "oh shit, yeah, we kinda forgot about that one."

like, all this took them by surprise? sucks to forget to implement a couple crucial features, eh?

Re:whoops

[asuffield]

Nope, this simply isn't news. The Hurd has been grossly incomplete and not ready for release for years, and it still is now.

Why on earth does this merit a slashdot headline?

Re:whoops

[paladin_tom]

This has nothing to do with the Hurd, and everything to do with the microkernel it's sitting on. At present, that microkernel is obsolete and slow.

Re:whoops

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't! In other news, the oceans remained in their liquid state.

Re:whoops

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, these problems were known about before I started fooling with the Hurd a couple of years ago. Think about it, the developers are going to be running other unices as well, how likely is it they wouldn't notice that they're not able to mount their big linux partitions (say) under Hurd ? That's not something one tends not to notice.

Re:whoops

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe if they spent more time in the real world, earning money for writing code, they`d realise that people in Windows-land have been using 20gig+ sized partitions for 3 years at least! 1gig!! How quaint! My swap-file partition is bigger than that!

Re:whoops

[Leimy]

This shouldn't be a surprise... its the same situation they had in 1998.

Re:whoops

[scrytch]

What would Nietzsche say about Open Source?

He rather liked the idea of people exploring their creativity without societally imposed limits, and in general expressing their desires and drives to their utmost. It's been used to justify tyranny, except that he figured that if enough good people also expressed their will to power, that controlling evil could not stand.

I rather think he'd like Bill Gates and Linus both. I imagine he'd have liked RMS when he was coding, but not as he is now. "In every party there is one who through his all too credulous avowal of the party's principles incites the others to apostasy."

Re:whoops

[Beliskner]

News: Stallman delays Hurd
Slashdot: NOOOO!

News: Micro$oft forces a buggy trashy piece of software out on time
Slashdot: NOOOO!

Conclusion: If Micro$oft is obliterated it won't be a happy era like the '60s, because everybody'll demand that volunteer OSS be released on time! Therefore Nobody will never happy

Wake up, people, OSS also means Open Source deadlines! Whatever happened to all this "Linux is about quality not quantity" that everybody believed in? I hope the ext4fs developers are paying attention - even if it's buggy and causes inode corruption it's GOTTA BE ON TIME! Sheesh, I wonder what'll happen on Slashdot if Stallman announces, "like Micro$oft we're gonna halt all Hurd development for 12 months while we look for security bugs".

Let's all be honest - we'd all rather have buggy software than late software.

Re:whoops

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe if they spent more time in the real world (...)

Like you? You mean trolling and bitching as Anonymous Coward on Slashdot is real world for you? Well, I suppose you're working on a better kernel yourself, right? Because you seem to be so competent in the field of advanced microkernel-based servers development.

Re:whoops

[Christopher Doopov]

is it just me, or does it sound like they had it all ready to ship, date planned and everything, and then someone pointed out that it was lacking some major I/O features/performance, and the developers collectively slapped their foreheads and went "oh shit, yeah, we kinda forgot about that one."

Yeah, you're right, what a stupid bunch of loosers! Ha ha ha!

like, all this took them by surprise? sucks to forget to implement a couple crucial features, eh?

Yes, sir! Well said, sir! I suppose you are working on a better revolutionary mikrokernel-based system of servers? Now, where's its URL again? Oh, I'm sorry, you mean you are just bitching because you personally don't like Richard Stallman and you really have no idea what the GNU Hurd is really all about in topics which involves more intellect than just counting how many gigabytes of filesystem you can mount? Please tell us then how would you suggest mapping multi-GB partitions on a 32-bit architecture? Oh, you had no idea that it's being mapped as memory instead of the old read/write/seek interface?

To moderators: Yeah! It's so (Score:5, Interesting)! You're great! Should you mod me down as flaimbait? Of course, since I'm answering to an obvious troll.

Re:whoops

[Anonymous Coward]

fucking idiot

Re:whoops

[LWATCDR]

Well I do think that Hurd is interesting but it is not a competitor to Linux. It should be thought of as a testbead to try out new Ideas.
However "Please tell us then how would you suggest mapping multi-GB partitions on a 32-bit architecture? Oh, you had no idea that it's being mapped as memory instead of the old read/write/seek interface?"

I would not try to map a multi-gb partition to a 32 bit achitecture like that. It is dumb. Sorry but it is. I "might" map a file to memory and live with a 32 bit limit on file size. Even looking back to 95 4 gigs a partion was and is a bad plan. If anything they should have mapped it to 64-bits. They could have made Hurd 64 bit to start with and live with the Alpha and Sparc64 as the dev platforms until AMD and Intel get there 64 bit chips in place.

Hurd developers, please

[Anonymous Coward]

give up

Re:Hurd developers, please

[paladin_tom]

Right. Any software project that takes effort, breaks new ground, and has real academic value isn't worth it.

Microsoft should be thanking you for spreading this attitude among Free/Open Source developers.

Re:Hurd developers, please

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like somebody's getting a little defensive. What's the matter, paladin_tom? Did one of the older boys point and laugh at you in the shower? Anyone who would laugh at you isn't your friend. You just look them right in the eye and say, "I'm happy the way the Lord made me!"

Re:Hurd developers, please

[Anonymous Coward]

Breaks new ground at what? Maybe in 1990, when micro kernels where new and exciting, yeah, maybe then HURD was breaking new ground.

It is also innovative and takes effort to run your house lights from a bicycle dynamo, but that doesn't make it worth it.

Tha HURD

[cscx]

Wow, this has been in the works since when, 1985? Does it support IDE hard drives too, or are they still on the MFM/RLL standards?

Jeez... there is a point you reach when you just GIVE UP.

"Hi, welcome to the GNU/HURD homepage. We enourage you to use our software, cause it's free as in freedom, y'know? Oh, but it doesn't support sound, any video cards, etc."

Will all the HURD users please stand up so that I may fart in their general direction? I have one question: WHAT are you trying to desperately prove? That you can eventually make something that's "not quite Linux?" I'd like to know your motivation.

Re:Tha HURD

[SpankTech3000]

I would really like to know if this project would even be relevant to the FSF if everybody just agreed to call it GNU/Linux and not just Linux. Stallman is pushing this thing because he *hates* Linux, not because he loves free software.

My $0.02 (-$12.02 after depreciation).

Re:Tha HURD

[Istealmymusic]

No, Stallman is pushing this thing because its modular and relies on the Mach microkernel and the Flux OSKit library, in stark contrast to Linux's monolithic kernel design. Not to say monolithic kernels are bad, but microkernels do have their advantages, and both GNU/Hurd and GNU/Linux will each have their respective pros and cons.

Re:Tha HURD

[rgmoore]

I'd assume that they're working on the HURD because they think that it's interesting, fun, and/or a good learning experience. Not all Free Software development has to take place with the goal of taking over the world. A lot of it, as ESR points out, is done to satisfy the interests of the individual authors. That's why there are a million projects on Freshmeat that are essentially clones of the same basic project- mp3 player frontends, database systems to catalog CD collections, etc. Individual programmers write them for their own personal reasons and then provide them for anyone else who wants a copy.

Re:Tha HURD

[Anonymous Coward]

No kidding, it's just like the situation with Linux. Linux will never be as popular as Windows, it's no more stable or reliable, and it doesn't support nearly the same hardware base as Windows. Why don't they just give up and start coding for a real platform? They'd do us all a favor. Will all the Linux users please stand up so that I may fart in their general direction? I have one question: WHAT are you trying to desperately prove? That you can eventually make something that's "not quite Windows?" I'd like to know your motivation.

Re:Tha HURD

[Anonymous Coward]

However, microkernels by definition can't possibly be as fast as monolithic kernels. More layers = less speed. I would rather have the speed than the useless supposed advantages of microkernels.

Re:Tha HURD

[phunhippy]

No, Stallman is pushing this thing because its modular

right! like 1gb drives!

Re:Tha HURD

[PylonHead]

And compiled high level language programs by definition can't be as fast as assembly language. But at some point we all decided that ease of programming and maintainance was more important.

As processors get faster and faster the time it takes to do the context switch will become less and less important.

Re:Tha HURD

[daves]

Jeez... there is a point you reach when you just GIVE UP.

They did. It probably hurt to drop HURD altogether.

Re:Tha HURD

[Glytch]

I can't speak for the FSF, since I don't work on any of their projects, but my guess is pride, ego, petty politics, and jealousy that some upstart school project snowballed and eclipsed their baby.

(And yes, I'm aware of the difference between microkernels and monolithic kernels., folks. I don't give a flying fuck, either. I just care about the difference between a working kernel and a non-working kernel. I do appreciate the utilities, though.)

Re:Tha HURD

[pediddle]

Exactly. He's taking modular to the extreme, because the idea is to have a hundred different "modular" 1GB hard drives sitting in your mainframe from 1985.

Re:Tha HURD

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to be joking! If HURD was designed to speed up programming then someone screwed up BIG TIME!

Re:Tha HURD

[elmegil]

Given the common whining rhetoric complaining that they don't get enough credit for providing most of the "unix" utilities in Linux (while they do deserve credit, whining about it is not the answer), you'd think they'd be in a bigger hurry to do it themselves and do it "right". After all, Linus took what they claimed to want to do all those years ago, and did it himself in a lot less time and a lot more successfully (at least so far). That's not a ringing endorsement of the gnu/fsf ideology....

Re:Tha HURD

[Uller-RM]

*shrug* You and I may like speed... but for the average user microkernels offer more advantages.

You and I are running servers and gaming systems; we want pure performance, and don't mind rebooting a couple of times or recompiling a kernel to change hardware or upgrade drivers. In contrast, my mom has trouble right-clicking My Computer and choosing Properties to get a driver list. For her, a layered driver system that can dynamically load and unload drivers as needed and layer itself against instability is a MAJOR plus, even if it's not for me.

Just because I favor speed over robustness doesn't mean either is intrinsically better - it just means my needs run that way. And, being a programmer, chances are that my needs represent a very tiny fraction of the computer users out there.

Re:Tha HURD

[Anonymous Coward]

touche'

Re:Tha HURD

[elmegil]

Stallman is pushing this thing because its modular and relies on the Mach microkernel and the Flux OSKit library, in stark contrast to Linux's monolithic kernel design.

Uh huh. The Linux kernel has been very modular (though not at the level of Mach) for quite some time.

It's also worth noting that Mach was tried in the marketplace as well...where is it today? "monolithic" kernels with modular drivers are quite a bit more common out there.

Re:Tha HURD

[fsmunoz]

Many reasons; nowadays the simple fact that one avoids being mistaken for what Linux users apparently became (and that is a bunch of whiners that don't care about anything but using CrossOver and pissing in the ppl that made it all possible in the first place) is a bonus.

And no, I'm not kidding. I guess I shouldn't take /. as an indicator of what a typical Linux user thinks (if not only because 80% of ppl use IE on Windows to view the site), but if it _is_ an indicator, oh boy, what a sad view.It's only natural that some people are going to help develop an OS that stands for something, that makes a point on being Free Software (like it or not)

Apart from that, the goals are interesting, one can learn something in OS design and I'm convinced that in the near future the GNU OS will be a viable and attractive plataform for every possible use.

fsmunoz

Re:Tha HURD

[Pseudonym]

I think you might be confusing yourself.

A monolithic kernel has no fewer layers than a modern microkernel OS. Say you want to write to a file. You make a system call, which goes through the system call interface layer, which then goes to the read() system call implementation, which then goes to the disk subsystem, which then goes to the disk driver.

"But microkernel OSes have to copy stuff around between subsystems", I hear you say. Well that's true under Linux too. At the very least you have to copy the data from user space to kernel space. Compare this with a modern microkernel system where the data is copied straight between your user space and the disk server's user space. Same number of layers, same amount of copying.

Having said, that I agree with you that Mach can't possibly be as fast as, say, Linux, which is why I carefully said this applied to "modern" microkernel systems, such as QNX. So my hopes aren't high for the Hurd, at least in its current incarnation. However, modern microkernel systems which run as fast as modern monolithic kernel systems are here today and they work.

Re:Tha HURD

[David_W]

It's also worth noting that Mach was tried in the marketplace as well...where is it today?

MacOS X?

Re:Tha HURD

[Anonymous Coward]

Richard Stallman should be seen and not HURD.

Re:Tha HURD

[be-fan]

In all reality, microkernels are all BS these days. Monolithic kernels have gotten to the point where they can be utterly stable (I have only crashed Linux a few times, and that was in the process of using development kernels) and totally modular (almost everything in Linux can be compiled as a module, and these days, Linux can dynamically detect USB mice or video cams just as easily as any microkernel). Microkernels still have their advantages, but that's in the massively parallel NUMA market or the distributed processing market, and isn't relavent to consumers.

Re:Tha HURD

[BlueGecko]

and both GNU/Hurd and GNU/Linux will each have their respective pros and cons

For example, Linux supports more bleeding-edge hardware designs, such as serial ports, VESA, IDE, and may even fully support PCI in the near future.

Re:Tha HURD

[larry bagina]

what I think is funny is how you collective epeople rail on Hurd for a minor performance penalty (which enables a *lot* of cool features), but haev such a hard on for XWindows.

Re:Tha HURD

[tzanger]

You and I are running servers and gaming systems; we want pure performance, and don't mind rebooting a couple of times or recompiling a kernel to change hardware or upgrade drivers. In contrast, my mom has trouble right-clicking My Computer and choosing Properties to get a driver list. For her, a layered driver system that can dynamically load and unload drivers as needed and layer itself against instability is a MAJOR plus, even if it's not for me.

Linux can dynamically load and unload drivers with ease. It's been able to do this since the 2.0.x kernels, IIRC. Hell you can compile modules and install them without updating the kernel tree in many cases. And kernel OOPSes in the stable trees have been few and far between, to say the least.

Yes, microkernels are nifty but there isn't a whole hell of a lot one can do that a modular monolithic kernel can't. I hear there's even work to make the networking stack itself a module. Yer mom isn't going to notice any difference between a microkernel and the hybrid kernel that Linux offers.

Re:Tha HURD

[wing.app]

They are making hurd because it is a good design, plain and simple. They have different design goals than Linux.

When Linux didn't support any sound cards you weren't whining. People dislike GNU for some reason, I don't know why, Slashdotters whine and whine about how the FSF whines and whines about GNU/foo.

Stop being hypocrites, Hurd is not GNU Mach, Hurd is aiming to be independent of GNU Mach, to be ported to a more elegant design like L4, if all of you people think it suck, why don't you help it? I thought this was the spirit of open source, no this is the spirit of Slashdot trolls.

Mod me down, if you must.

Re:Tha HURD

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to nick pick, but in this situation,GNU/Linux is not correct because you are refering to Linux the kernel not GNU/Linux the system :)

Re:Tha HURD

[Pseudonym]

I am shocked that someone who calls themselves "be-fan" would be calling microkernels BS. What about BeOS, for heaven's sake?

Re:Tha HURD

[paladin_tom]

There's a difference. Linus wrote a monolithic Unix-like kernel. That's a *huge* accomplishment (I know I couldn't do it!), but Unix-like kernels are well-understood.

The Hurd, on the other hand, is a multi-server design. This is new stuff -- the only other major such system I know is QNX. Building multi-servers is something that most people have no experience with.

So, if you're going to complain that the Hurd is taking too long to implement, I ask you this: do you think it is the place of Free/Open Source developers to innovate (which will take a long time), or only to copy what Microsoft and other proprietary software companies do?

Re:Tha HURD

[jpetts]

Not to say monolithic kernels are bad, but microkernels do have their advantages, and both GNU/Hurd and GNU/Linux will each have their respective pros and cons.

This is something that Linus Torvalds covers in his book "Just For Fun", in which he reproduces the exchanges between himself and Steven Tanenbaum relating to monolithic versus microkernels.

Re:Tha HURD

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Stallman is pushing this thing because its modular and relies on the Mach microkernel and the Flux OSKit library....

Okay, that's why he's pushing it today. Why was he pushing it yesterday, when it had nothing to do with OSKit?

Re:Tha HURD

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to nick pick (whatever), but "GNU/Linux" is never correct because "Linux" is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds, and has been since 1994. The name "Linux" describes "computer operating system software." In other words, the name "Linux" describes the entire operating system, not just the kernel as some people from the FSF would have you believe.

Because "Linux" is a trademark, it is illegal to modify, combine, or otherwise dilute the mark without explicit permission from Linus Torvalds. So the use of the name "GNU/Linux" is not only inaccurate, it's also infringing, and therefore illegal under United States jurisdiction, and jurisdictions in countries signatory to the Berne Convention.

And while I'm on the subject, thanks to this guy for taking up the cause. Keep fighting the ignorance, brother.

Re:Tha HURD

[Twirlip of the Mists]

I ask you this: do you think it is the place of Free/Open Source developers to innovate (which will take a long time), or only to copy what Microsoft and other proprietary software companies do?

It is the place of the open source developers to innovate. Most of them don't. It is the place of the FSF to engage in politics. Most everyone ignores them.

Meanwhile, companies like Apple, and others, are doing the really interesting things.

The open source idea sounds okay, but it's not working out the way people seemed to expect it to.

Re:Tha HURD

[Twirlip of the Mists]

You have got to be kidding, right?

Re:Tha HURD

[Anonymous Coward]

Logical moderation: -1 flamebait, -1 troll.

Re:Tha HURD

[paladin_tom]

Meanwhile, companies like Apple, and others, are doing the really interesting things.

I hope you don't mean Darwin. That's just Mach and FreeBSD running in the same address space, which completely wastes all the advantages of a microkernel. There's no interesting technology there.

Re:Tha HURD

[Anonymous Coward]

80% of ppl use IE on Windows to view the site

It's considerably more than that. Everybody knows that there are only about seven people who use Mozilla. Lots of people say they do, but they're all just trying to sound cool.

And Konqueror? Galeon? Opera? One guy each. And, truthfully, it's the same guy for both Galeon and Opera.

Re:Tha HURD

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, at least he's started doing something other than beaking off about how BeOS is better than everything, and everything else sucks immensely.

Re:Tha HURD

[Anonymous Coward]

OS2/Warp is Mach 3 at the core. Also, that is one of the reasons why it was so late to market. Damn microkernel messaged itself to death...

Re:Tha HURD

[Twirlip of the Mists]

You and I obviously have different definitions of "interesting." But no, I wasn't referring specifically or exclusively to Darwin. Rather, I was referring to the fact that Apple-- partly by standing on the shoulders of NeXT-- has been able to do something that no one else have ever been able to do before: create a UNIX-based operating system that is suitable for general-purpose desktop use by nontechnical users. What's more, they've even done such a good job with OS X that they've got people paying for it! I mean no disrespect to anybody, but in a very real sense you can't even give Linux or FreeBSD to the average home computer user, while Apple has people paying for OS X. That's an amazing accomplishment. Whether you like OS X or not, you have to respect Apple's achievement.

That's what I meant by "interesting."

Re:Tha HURD

[jonathan_ingram]

On the whole I'd rather look at him than listen to him sing 'Freeeeeee the software'.

Re:Tha HURD

[i_am_nitrogen]

The only achievement is branding. Apple could put Hurd on their boxes and XFree86 2, and as long as it worked with Apple branded software, people would eat it.

Re:Tha HURD

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Actually, I'd say making it actually work comes before branding. The reason why Apple doesn't use Hurd and XFree86 2 is because those things don't work, as in the often-used phrase "just works." Apple spent years and lots of money making OS X "just work." Nobody else in the world has ever had a UNIX-based operating system that "just worked." This is a significant achievement.

Re:Tha HURD

[vadim_t]

Nothing, you moron.

I just like using a decent system, and by my standards, "decent" is almost never something Microsoft makes. I'm typing thing from Konqueror, BTW. I read my mail from KMail without worrying about stupid viruses. I see slashdot news in the news ticker. I write my source code with Kate and Vim. I go to IRC servers with KVIrc, and chat with people with Jabber. When I do need Windows for my work I start VMware.

Again, I'm not trying to prove anything. I just works the way I like it.

Re:Tha HURD

[Anonymous Coward]

People loved HURD. They are just starting hate it after 10 years of loving.

Re:Tha HURD

[DrXym]

Unfortunately, such talk is moot these days since modern monolithic kernels such as Linux are capable of dynamically loading and unloading drivers - they're called modules.

Anyway, in terms of stability I have yet to see anything that beats Linux. I've been running it for 4 or 5 years in various roles on some terrible hardware and I'm actually taken aback when it crashes it happens that rarely.

Micro kernels are not immune from crashes either. My OS X box crashed once too, which again surprised me since it's been a very stable system.

Re:Tha HURD

[Anonymous Coward]

The Point called. It said it waved as it flew by over your head, but it doesn't think you saw it.

Re:Tha HURD

[Herkules]

Well thats great but if you load a module with fucked up code CRASH!!! With the Hurd its in user space so your apache server just keeps on rooling!!

Thats the thing!!!! a driver wont kill your server!

Re:Tha HURD

[elmegil]

That's not a tiny niche market?

Re:Tha HURD

[swillden]

Anyway, in terms of stability I have yet to see anything that beats Linux.

Then you haven't seen much. Sure, Linux is pretty solid, and certainly much better than any Windows variant (though MS is narrowing the gap). I had a server that stayed up continuously for over three years, until I decided to upgrade it. But Linux isn't nearly as reliable as commercial Unixes, and big iron operating systems have uptimes that are measured in decades. Of course, mainframes have the ability to upgrade and replace hardware and even system software without downtime.

And, as another poster mentioned, the HURD has the advantage that even bad driver modules won't take it down. For example, my Linux laptop crashes weekly because of a bug in the usbnet module (I use usbnet to connect to a little PDA-like device that I'm working on -- which also runs Linux) and under the HURD that couldn't happen, because the module would be in userspace.

Re:Tha HURD

[Anonymous Coward]

Call it "important" rather than "interesting". Apple has done "important" development by creating a usable UNIX. The HURD project is also doing "important" work at the kernel level. I'm not a kernel expert, but I know there is a lot of disagreement between very smart people over which approach is better (monolithic vs. microkernel). Even if the HURD doesn't see commercial success, kernel developers will learn from it. Who knows, someday Apple may base their next "next-gen" OS on the HURD. Just because the user can't see it doesn't mean it isn't important.

Re:Tha HURD

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple has people paying for OS X. That's an amazing accomplishment.

Can you believe that? A company is actually selling a product, and people are actually buying it? Wait. Hasn't that been going on for decades??

Think about it. You're amazed that an established company is selling a new product to it's existing userbase and a few more people.
Yet, community-led initiatives are actually becoming a viable alternative to the existing dominant OSes, competing with companies which have ungodly ammounts of money and huge user bases, and you're not impressed or excited.

You must be a fan of the dictatorship or something.

Re:Tha HURD

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously don't share the appreciate of free software that the people who develop for Linux do.

Linux may not reach Windows popularity (or maybe it will), but it will always be more popular than MacOS X.

Re:Tha HURD

[paladin_tom]

Actually, microkernels have the potential to increase the performance of applications such as databases and multimedia.

A very good read that I recommend to anyone interested in operating systems is Towards Real Microkernels by Jochen Liedtke. It explains the advantages of microkernel-based systems, what is wrong with older microkernels like Mach, and why current second-generation microkernels are better.

Re:Tha HURD

[Anonymous Coward]

No good design takes 20 years to implement. That means it's a BAD design. Design is a lot more than pie-in-the-sky wishes and candy-coated dreams. If it can't be worked into a finished product and that product cannot be used, it's useless. In the universe of kernels the score is Linus: 1. RMS: 0.

Re:Tha HURD

[kjd]

GNU is an OS for the hacker community, not the Apple community. It is not supposed to "just work" in the sense that Apple's OS "just works". OS X may be interesting, but the two projects are not comparable in the ways described in this thread.

Re:Tha HURD

[Twirlip of the Mists]

What are you, an idiot? Read the rest of my post. I said-- paraphrasing here-- that you can't give desktop Linux away, but Apple has people paying for Mac OS X. That demonstrates that Apple has done something that all the Linux and BSD hackers in the world have been unable to do: create a UNIX-based operating system that ordinary people actually want to use.

You can be as sarcastic as you want; it doesn't diminish Apple's accomplishment.

Yet, community-led initiatives are actually becoming a viable alternative to the existing dominant OSes, competing with companies which have ungodly ammounts of money and huge user bases, and you're not impressed or excited.

That's because, as you say, "community-led initiatives" (which is what I call "hobby projects") are not viable alternatives to the existing OSs. If they were, people would be using them. But instead of downloading Red Hat Whatever for free, they're still buying Mac OS X by the truckload. Mac OS X was initially very sluggish-- it's gotten a lot better with each release-- and incompatible with tons of older Mac software. And yet people pay good money for it. Doesn't that tell you something?

Re:Tha HURD

[Twirlip of the Mists]

So stipulated. But to be fair, let's describe Apple's work as being interesting in the "sell millions of copies and become, in less than a year, the world's largest supplier of UNIX-based operating systems" sense, while Hurd is interesting in the "Hurd who?" sense.

Re:Tha HURD

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have the sales figures handy, but I wouldn't be surprised if Red Hat has grossed more for its sales of Linux than Apple has for OS X. I know we've spent several hundred on it, without getting anything more than CDs from the bargain, and no guarantee that it would work with our hardware. And that's sales of something that they *do* give away for free as well. And that they didn't develop.

If you want to talk about impressive (sales) accomplishments, I'd say that trumps Apple. But by your logic, M*ft's ability to sell their crap is millions of times more impressive than Apple's accomplishment, even on a cost/benefit ratio scale ("cost" and "benefit" from a M*ft shareholder's point of view, not an end-user's).

Re:Tha HURD

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Apple sold 100,000 copies of Mac OS X 10.2 during the first weekend it was available. At $129 each, that's $12,900,000 in gross revenue for just that one weekend. Red Hat, on the other hand, sold 4,802 copies of their software in the entire month of July. Even if you're generous and assume all of those units were the $150 "Professional" version-- they almost certainly weren't-- that comes to $720,300 in revenues for an entire month. If Red Hat were able to do that for an entire year, they wouldn't be able to match the gross sales of Mac OS X for one weekend.

Note that this doesn't count units of Mac OS X that were bundled with a new machine; this only counts actual retail packages sold. The number of units of Mac OS X 10.2 shipped is somewhat higher than this figure, making it difficult to estimate gross revenue from all sales of Mac OS X-- bundled and retail-- until we see the annual report.

(All figures from PC Data. If you have other figures that lead to a different conclusion, we can discuss them. Until then, STFU about sales figures about which you have no information.)

19 years

[Anonymous Coward]

GNU/Hurd. 19 years in the making, and worth every minute of it.

Finally the world will have a politically correct OS that works just like other Unices have for decades.

Re:19 years

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't work "just like other Unices", It _is_ in fact "freer". Non-priveleged users can do much more stuff without being allowed to hose the system.

Re:19 years

[aardvarkjoe]

...And will it be worth the extra 19 years it will take to make it usable?

Re:19 years

[Mr Rohan]

GNU/Hurd. 19 years [gnu.org] in the making, and worth every minute of it.

What to do when your project is running so late ? Try to take the credit for someone someone else's great idea (GNU/Linux) :-P

Re:19 years

[anethema]

You mean 19 years -ago-

Re:19 years

[MyHair]

GNU/Hurd. 19 years in the making, and worth every minute of it.

That's not entirely fair. A lot of Linux-based OSes contain very healthy doses of GNU software and are compiled with GCC, one of the first major contributions of GNU.

The kernel was one of the last things they tackled, but along came Linus Torvalds and now many OS kernel developers would rather work on Linux than the Hurd.

Re:19 years

[Arandir]

A lot of Linux-based OSes contain very healthy doses of GNU software and are compiled with GCC, one of the first major contributions of GNU.

Most of that GNU software is not a part of the OS. Certainly a compiler is not. It may be useful to you, and necessary to build the OS, but it is no more a part of the OS than a screwdriver is part of a car.

GNU follows Microsoft's erroneous definition of "operating system". Just because it ships with the OS does not make it the OS.

Re:19 years

[Abcd1234]

That would be an erroneous statement, IMHO. The kernel is the kernel. It facilitates things. It provides a substrate upon which an OS can be built. The OS, aka, "operating system" is the collection of tools combine with the kernel which provide a working, useable system. After all, the Linux kernel would be totally useless if we didn't have init, bash, mount, ls, etc, etc.

Re:19 years

[mangu]

After all, the Linux kernel would be totally useless if we didn't have init, bash, mount, ls, etc, etc.

A car would be useless without tyres or seats, but I don't call mine a PIRELLI/RECARO/Chevrolet

Re:19 years

[Abcd1234]

Yeah, but keep in mind that the work to develop the seats is pretty small compared to that needed to build, say, the engine or the chassis. The opposite is true in the OS world. Yes, the kernel is an impressive feat of software development. But the sheer mass of code which encompasses the GNU toolchain is mind-boggling. Hell, gcc itself is huge, let alone the reset of the system.

Re:19 years

[Arandir]

I didn't say that the kernel was the only component of an operating system. You also need some infrastructure around it, and the ability to run an executable. It's entirely possible, and somewhat common, to have a usuable Linux system without GNU. Throw linux, some minimal infrastructure, and BusyBox on an embedded device and you have an operating system without one GNU utility.

The problem is that there is no commonly accepted and *specific* definition of operating system. I've talked to CS professors who say that a kernel fits their definition. I've also heard lawyers swear before worldwide TV that Internet Explorer is a part of an operating system. The truth lies somewhere in between.

My definition is the bare minimum software necessary to manage the hardware and direct the processing of other software. This would include a file system, boot/init structure, process infrastructure, and the like. Excluded is bash, emacs, gcc, ls and tar. They may be damned useful, but they are no more part of the operating system than XFree86 or Perl.

Even if you don't like my definition, you still have to admit that a complete Linux distro that can fit on a single floppy counts as an operating system. There's a lot of these single floppy distros, and none of them come with much GNU software.

Thank god they're fixing partition size

[metalhed77]

Does anyone here know why they let the partition size issue languish for so long? Hell, I've had files larger than 1GB (and not porn! go figure). Hard disks have been at the 10 GB mark for years, where it really doesnt' make sense to have 10 partitions. I wish richard luck. On another note, does anyone know how HURD benchmarks against linux?

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[cscx]

On another note, does anyone know how HURD benchmarks against linux?

Currently, the HURD doesn't support benchmarking software. But they hope to add that functionality within the next few years, if that answers your question.

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[Wesley Felter]

IIRC the partition size limit is due to the fact that the filesystem server mmaps the partition; on 32-bit systems there isn't enough address space for large partitions.

As for benchmarks, I think the answer is "don't ask".

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[caseyc]

I have to wonder if GNU/Hurd developers have been partitioning their HD's with so many 1gb partitions up until now. And, at what point did it occur to them that there was a better way to do it?

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[JacobO]

Perhaps they are still developing on their 1983 systems where a 1 gig software limit is no problem...

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[Waffle Iron]

IIRC the partition size limit is due to the fact that the filesystem server mmaps the partition; on 32-bit systems there isn't enough address space for large partitions.

Hmmm. That is a very elegant way to handle disk partitions. Maybe they shouldn't rush into a quick fix for this that loses the benefits of mmaping the whole partition. In a few short years, AMD, Intel and IBM will all be offering mainstream 64-bit CPUs, and they'll be able to mmap exabyte sized partitions without throwing out the current codebase.

I think that they should just hold tight until then. No need for reckless haste.

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[the_other_one]

The project has been underfunded

They must have just got their first 10 GB hard disk in the P100.

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[brianosaurus]

Yeah. I mean, we've been waiting 15 years (or whatever)... what's a few more in the grand scheme of things?

But how soon will IBM's pixie dust make possible disks with partitions larger than can be addressed in 64-bits?

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[ivan256]

But how soon will IBM's pixie dust make possible disks with partitions larger than can be addressed in 64-bits?

Considering that you can byte address billions of gigabytes with a 64-bit address space, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that there will never be an IBM pixie dust hard drive that can't be mapped with 64 bits.

The processor with the highest number of valid virtual address bits currently available uses 54 bits of the available 64. Even this machine is not in danger of being unable to address all of a disk that is made with currently available technology.

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[Anonymous Coward]

"No need for reckless haste"

You mean like the blindingly reckless haste of the past few years?

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[defile]

It's a really hard problem to fix.

The ext2fs implementation is actually a userland process which takes a partition as an argument and attaches a translator to the mountpoint. The translator's job is to send requests under this namespace to this server.

The ext2fs server actually mmap()s the partition containing the filesystem and performs all operations as if it were a contiguous block of memory. Unfortunately the ext2fs driver, since it's a userland process, can only address 2GB of memory (the kernel often takes half). Adding a heap and a stack leaves mmap() with about 1GB to safely play with.

Eliminating this limitation would mean using either a 64-bit architecture, or using a read/write/lseek interface instead of mmap, which may mean totally throwing out the ext2fs server as-is. Perhaps they weren't concerned with the limitation because they thought everyone would be using 64-bit architectures by now?

I'm not sure if there are any other reasons other than the filesystem servers using mmap() for the limitation.

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[SN74S181]

P100??

The HURD is targeted at VAX hardware, dude. (they finally gave up trying to get parts for that old PDP-11)

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[Anonymous Coward]

1.6 million terabytes can be addressed with 64 bits, assuming one address per byte. Multiply that value by 512 bytes if you are using one address per hard drive sector. If, hypothetically, storage density on the average drive were to double every year, I'd estimate that in roughly 45 years, our average mass storage device will use around 2^64 sectors.

I wonder, at what point is enough enough for the average (no medical/scientific applications) home user? With 2^64 bytes, you could record a 3d video (one vid for each eye) of an entire human life at 3200x2400 24bit uncompressed video and 96KHz/24bit stereo audio. That'll hold more porn, movies, and audio than anyone could possibly watch. =)

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[paladin_tom]

Does anyone here know why they let the partition size issue languish for so long?

The partition size is limited because the Hurd maps the entire disk partition into main memory, and the 32-bit architecture of current Intel processors limits the size of a virtual address space to 2^32 bytes, hence the limitation. Changing the Hurd to do things differently isn't exactly a one-weekend patch.

On another note, once we go the 64-bit processors, we'll see a much larger virtual address space (double it's current size 32 times), and hence a much higher cap on the partition size (assuming no fix).

On another note, does anyone know how HURD benchmarks against linux?

This really isn't the right question to ask: remember that the Hurd is at version 0.2, and that "Premature optimization is the root of all evil." No new Free/Open Source kernel is going to ship and be immediately as fast and full-featured as Linux... things just don't work that way.

What's important is that the Hurd represents new OS technology... and that's more important that any current lack of performance or drivers.

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[Some Dumbass...]

Hell, I've had files larger than 1GB (and not porn! go figure).

Hint: "man logrotate"

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Are you the same AC? Again, your calculator is broken. Two to the sixty-fourth power is 16.7 million terabytes, not 1.6 million terabytes.

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[istartedi]

Currently, the HURD doesn't support benchmarking software

Oh man! I take back every bad thing I ever said about RMS and friends. Anyone who can disable benchmarking software deserves not only a McArthur grant, but international acclaim and recognition at every level. Why... oh... OK. Go ahead. Give him his Free Software tax. He deserves it. I'll be there to applaud him at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Bureau Of Software Development in Washington DC. Imagine! At last. No more benchmarks. This is a red letter day indeed.

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[Permission Denied]

The ext2fs server actually mmap()s the partition

This is completely nuts.

I can appreciate that the filesystem driver is a userland process - this means I can write a "filesystem" as a normal userland process (eg, make some things have a filesystem-like interface, so you can do interesting things with databases like make /etc/passwd a directory). This is a cool idea.

However, using mmaping an entire partition is just crazy. This is poor design. What were they thinking?

Are they trying to avoid the system call overhead for seek() calls? This is the only reason I can think of that someone would do this - when you read/write/seek, you have to do a system call for seek(), but that comes "for free" when you mmap() because you specify the address. This would only be a problem with HURD-like systems, because there is no overhead if the filesystem driver runs in kernel space along with whatever other subsystems it needs to use.

I know everyone hates backseat designers, but I'd like to know if the following approach has been considered:

Make two new system calls, say "readaddr" and "writeaddr". These work like read and write, except that you also specify an offset (perhaps with a "whence" field like lseek). This saves you the overhead of calling seek all the time by combining the operations into one system call. This might be useful for other things as well, but I would imagine a filesystem driver is one speed-critical piece of code that does a lot of jumping around. Actually, I just remembered that there already are calls for this: pread/pwrite.

Another possible approach: using mmap is nice, but mapping in an entire partition is fubar. Why not map in specific parts of the partition as they become needed? Eg, keep superblock mapped right away from startup, and map in other parts as they are needed. Seems a bit complex, but could be done more easily with another layer of abstraction (some library which keeps a hash or something of mmap()ed bits and provides a nice interface for filesystem drivers). I'm guessing mmap was used as this transfers certain operations (eg, cache management) "deeper" into the "kernel" and avoids code duplication.

But anyway, mmaping an entire partition is really nuts. They're not getting any sympathy from me.

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[d_i_r_t_y]

the Hurd workaround to 1Gb ext2 partitions: a 1 gig partition for each of / and /usr, and a 78gig fat32 partition for data.

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[Olivier Galibert]

No, what they're trying to do is offload the cache management to the virtual memory manager. With mmap() backed by the partition itself, the VM can read and write the pages transparently w.r.t the ext2 server. With read/write/lseek, you have to do actual memory management. Last time I looked, there was no interface for collaboration between the VM and the servers for cache management.

And this kind of cache management is horribly hard in a monolithic kernel for a start. Look how long 2.4 took before the VM behaviour was considered decent (2.4.16 iirc). A decently fast distributed one is even worse to design.

OG.

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[Anonymous Coward]

You know. My Windows XP machine has 120GB of HD space, and I didn't need to compile anything to set it up. GNU HURD today announces that it will support 1GB partitions? 100GB is $100. When the 4TB HD comes out, will they be able to play a movie yet? Heck, even my Digital Camera supports its 1GB HD, and I bought way back in 2000.

Maybe the HURD will someday run on machines we care about. Until then, I'm sticking with Microsoft. They might have a monopoly, but Linux doesn't come close when it comes to useability. Maybe when it comes to functionality, but I prefer having my cake and eating it too.

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not new after 15 years.

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[Anonymous Coward]

"A Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer is to computing what a McDonalds Certified Food Specialist is to fine cuisine"

Except a MS certification will get you a job more easily, and for more money. What other industry certs are worth anything? Any linux ones? Try pulling that shit with an employer and it`ll be like "you've got what now?"

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[Leimy]

Sounds like a fundamental design that should be thrown away so you can do what you really want to do. I think most good software engineers see when things are going to "dead-end" and should abandon the losing design in favor of a better one.

Did BSD-Lites have this partition issue? It ran a Unix server on top of Mach too I believe. To force people to run a 64bit architecture to run Hurd seems like a bit of a non-liberating liberation :)

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[Anonymous Coward]

Except a MS certification will get you a job more easily, and for more money.

And being a world-class software engineer pays a lot better than being a world class chef. Computing pays better than food. What's your point?

And I completely disagree that it's easier to get a job as a systems engineer than it is to get a job at McDonald's.

What other industry certs are worth anything?

None of them are worth the paper they're printed on. None of the six figure-salaried programmers I know have any certs at all.

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[Anonymous Coward]

Shit, I knew that too. My bad. =(

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[ivan256]

Multiply that value by 512 bytes if you are using one address per hard drive sector.

Aside from the bad math, the issue here was that they memory mapped the disk. That means you have to byte address the disk instead of sector address the disk.

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[Moofie]

Or MAYBE nobody's set up a benchmarking suite that works properly on HURD.

No, you're right. Gotta be black helicopters.

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[Nevyn]

Make two new system calls, say "readaddr" and "writeaddr". These work like read and write, except that you also specify an offset (perhaps with a "whence" field like lseek).

They are called pread() and pwrite(). They have been around for a _long_ time on Linux. Obviously you still have a single system call where on Linux it'd have none, and I'd be willing to bet that system calls are more expensive on hurd. Personally I don't think it really matters too much ... it's not like people are going to use it anytime soon anyway. One of my favourite quotes on the hurd is... The Hurd itself is aggressively multi-threaded and all of the locking has been done with an eye towards multi-processor systems. That said, we have not yet used a microkernel that stably supports multiple cpus. This was written by a so called "developer" of the hurd.

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm... who's more clueless? You, or the moderator who marked this "Insightful" when it was plainly meant to be "Funny"? Tough call. You.

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[Nevyn]

I don't really follow hurd development (or FreeDOS, which is about as relevant) ... however it sounds like what you are saying is that read()/write() syncronisation with the VM isn't done automatically. So every "translator" has to implement VM syncronisation code ? That's just sad, as the only reason to even look at hurd is so you can try out translators ... but it looks like you have to write a mini OS so do one.

And this kind of cache management is horribly hard in a monolithic kernel for a start. Look how long 2.4 took before the VM behaviour was considered decent (2.4.16 iirc). A decently fast distributed one is even worse to design.

That's very different, you are just talking about VM syncronisation which has been on Linux since at least 2.0.x (maybe even the start). Ie. mmap() and read()/write(). The VM changes in 2.4.x were mainly for speed and extreme overload cases.

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[oconnorcjo]

No new Free/Open Source kernel is going to ship and be immediately as fast and full-featured as Linux... things just don't work that way.

What's important is that the Hurd represents new OS technology... and that's more important that any current lack of performance or drivers.

The Hurd has been in developement for far longer than when the first line of Linux was written. That does not mean that the Hurd will not one day be a spiffy OS but it does beg the question of how does it fair with its distant cousin. If the Hurd wants to be more than an academic curiosity, it has to perform well. It does not have to perform as well as Linux, but well enough that you don't notice it. New technology is only interesting if it is better or faster in some noticable way to the user.

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[paladin_tom]

Technology that is under development is never better for end-users than stable software. Those of us who run GNU/Hurd and are involved with the project want to help develop an architectually-superior Free OS.

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what is wrong with most Linux users I run into. They know nothing of the real world. We routinely work with files that are multi gig. It's only been recently that Linux could even handle a +2 gig file while on Windows we've been working 5-10 gig image files for years.

This is what makes people consider Linux to have been (and to a large degree still is) a "toy" OS. Great for tinker(toy)ing around with, but falls horribly short on real world situations.

Linux is FINALLY starting to come around, but it's still got maybe 5 years to go to be an adequet replacement for a real UNIX or even windows today.

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[Anonymous Coward]

Impressive! One .1 point release every decade! There's got to be some kind of igNobel prize for that.

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[ameoba]

No biggie... By the time the HURD is shipping, 64b procs will either be standard on most computers, or obsolete.

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[Christopher Doopov]

This is completely nuts. (...) using mmaping an entire partition is just crazy. This is poor design. What were they thinking? (...) Make two new system calls, say "readaddr" and "writeaddr".

More syscalls is not the answer to "poor design," as you call it, I would call your open/seek/write/read/readaddr/writeaddr/close software interrupts based syscalls interface a poor design, in the oposition to MOV fundamental processor opcode, which is as simple and clean as only it is possible. Besides, Hurd is not about speed -- they don't do it to eliminate a seek syscall overhead (which is laughable, by the way, compared to read and write syscalls) -- it's about clean and robust design. I, for one, am sure they are doing a great work, I personally haven't seen a better kernel design yet.

Another possible approach: using mmap is nice, but mapping in an entire partition is fubar. Why not map in specific parts of the partition as they become needed?

This is what they would probably end with, as a workaround for poor legacy 32-bit architectures, like Intel x86 -- but only as a quick-and-dirty, temporary workaround. You can't have cleaner interface to a partition than seeing it as a continuous memory block. At least I can't imagine a cleaner interface, if you have any idea of such a thing, I'll be more than glad to hear it.

But anyway, mmaping an entire partition is really nuts. They're not getting any sympathy from me.

It's not a popularity contest -- it's a clean design, no more, no less.

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[Permission Denied]

This is what they would probably end with, as a workaround for poor legacy 32-bit architectures, like Intel x86 -- but only as a quick-and-dirty, temporary workaround. You can't have cleaner interface to a partition than seeing it as a continuous memory block. At least I can't imagine a cleaner interface, if you have any idea of such a thing, I'll be more than glad to hear it.

Do you realize how ridiculous your words are? "Legacy" 32-bit environments? Like the "legacy" 32-bit environment with the "legacy" operating system that you used to type into slashdot? So it's cleaner to make the maximum filesystem size depend on the machine's pointer length than it is to simply write better software, even if writing better software means resorting to traditional ("legacy" as you might call it) methods?

The "single opcode MOV?" You do realize how mmap works? Certainly the user-level program can simply access it like memory, but this then goes through the VM (by means of a hardware interrupt on page fault) which calls some disk subsystem, which will eventually end up calling a disk driver. End result is that you write something to the disk. There is no magic MMU hardware which understands EIDE or SCSI and maps memory to disk blocks - this is done through code. It's merely an abstraction to transfer the complex parts of the code into another layer of software, made necessary because of the poorly-thought-out layers of software.

How can a single MOV be considered "elegant" when you have to keep a data structure of which parts of the partition are mapped? Your single MOV instruction becomes a series of instructions to select a "view" of a partition, clean out old "views," and map new ones when needed. It won't be a MOV, it will be a function call into some library. How is this more clean than simply calling pread()? Of course, as you say, this is only a "temporary hack" - you can get rid of this once everyone is using 64-bit architectures.

It's not "clean" or "elegant" in any sense of the word. The mmap is a nasty hack because someone couldn't figure out how to use the same cache management that the VM uses in a user-level process. Someone simply chose a poor abstraction. It's a mistake, and I simply cannot understand how someone could let such a stunning error into any operating system.

I hate to spoil your naivete, but Intel and AMD don't give a damn about HURD, and they certainly don't design their hardware with this sort of thing in mind. Although the theoreticians don't like this, computer hardware is complex and non-orthoganal. If the HURD was designed to run on only 64-bit machines with clean MMUs, you'll be waiting a long time until HURD is stable on readily-available hardware. (Does HURD even support 64-bit architectures at this time? If not, then how can you possibly justify the mistake of having filesystem drivers use mmap?)

I don't give a damn about the politics. This is simply bad design. You can attack me with all sorts of accusations that I don't approve because of whatever politics, but this does not change the fact that someone made an immense error when designing the filesystem servers and certain people thought this error was "elegant."

I really didn't mean to flame you personally, but this is inexcusably bad design. I don't understand how someone can justify it, rather than admitting that it's a fundamental design problem.

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[Ayende Rahien]

> legacy 32-bit

ROTFLMAO

> You can't have cleaner interface to a partition than seeing it as a continuous memory block

Maybe, but it takes exactly fifteen minutes to do:

read_partition(unsigned long start, unsigned long length, char * buffer);
write_partition(unsigned long start, unsigned long length, char * buffer);

Which gives you just as clean interface, if at the cost of a few more calls.

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[TheLink]

Just curious - are there any issues mmaping stuff on SMP machines? Or it'll still be better/good?

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[Christopher Doopov]

You can't have cleaner interface to a partition than seeing it as a continuous memory block

Maybe, but it takes exactly fifteen minutes to do:

read_partition(unsigned long start, unsigned long length, char * buffer); write_partition(unsigned long start, unsigned long length, char * buffer);

Which gives you just as clean interface, if at the cost of a few more calls.

Few more calls and the time to read the whole partition into the memory, change few bytes while blocking the partition to any other access, and then write the whole partition to the disk. The whole point of using mmap-kind of disk-memory relationship is not to cache the partition in RAM, but to make the partition appear like it was in RAM (see man mmap).

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[oconnorcjo]

Technology that is under development is never better for end-users than stable software. Those of us who run GNU/Hurd and are involved with the project want to help develop an architectually-superior Free OS.

While I don't necessarily agree with your assertion, I will just skip it because it is not important to the discussion. RMS was saying for awhile that Hurd was almost ready for prime time. If that is the case, then "under developement" is not what Hurd was going for. As I said in the parent post "If the Hurd wants to be more than an academic curiosity, it has to perform well.". You are saying you like Hurd for academic reasons and that is fine. I was only making a point about BEYOND academia.

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[Anonymous Coward]

penis.

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[Christopher Doopov]

Do you realize how ridiculous your words are?

I surely don't, otherwise I wouldn't have written them, now would I? But I hope you are about to enlighten me.

So it's cleaner to make the maximum filesystem size depend on the machine's pointer length than it is to simply write better software, even if writing better software means resorting to traditional ("legacy" as you might call it) methods?

Yes, it is a cleaner interface. It might be not enough in the terms of partition size on 32-bit architectures for some tasks, but it is still a cleaner interface.

The "single opcode MOV?" You do realize how mmap works?

As a matter of fact, yes I do. If I didn't, I wouldn't have been writing about it, if it isn't obvious. I surely hope that I was wrong and you will now proceed to teach me the mysteries of mmap, since I'm getting a little bit tired of your aggressive rethoric.

Certainly the user-level program can simply access it like memory,

And which part of my post has proved you that I thought otherwise? (Of course you do know that the Hurd servers are user-space processes, don't you?)

but this then goes through the VM (by means of a hardware interrupt on page fault) which calls some disk subsystem, which will eventually end up calling a disk driver. End result is that you write something to the disk.

Dear Lord! Please! Have you really though that I had no idea that the whole point of having an interface to partition is to write something to the disk? Have you really thought that in my eyes it was some magical way to make the hard drives not needed any more? This is an insult, no more, no less.

There is no magic MMU hardware which understands EIDE or SCSI and maps memory to disk blocks - this is done through code. It's merely an abstraction to transfer the complex parts of the code into another layer of software, made necessary because of the poorly-thought-out layers of software.

Of course it's merely an abstraction, this is what interfaces are all about. I think you have totally misunderstood my point -- I was talking about the interface, not about the implementation.

How can a single MOV be considered "elegant" when you have to keep a data structure of which parts of the partition are mapped? Your single MOV instruction becomes a series of instructions to select a "view" of a partition, clean out old "views," and map new ones when needed. It won't be a MOV, it will be a function call into some library.

Yes, you definitely seem to talk about the implementation, while trying to fight my arguments about the interface. There's nothing I can say here, since it has nothing to do with the fact if the interface is clean or not.

It's not "clean" or "elegant" in any sense of the word.

There is a difference between "elegant implementation" and "elegant interface."

The mmap is a nasty hack because someone couldn't figure out how to use the same cache management that the VM uses in a user-level process. Someone simply chose a poor abstraction. It's a mistake, and I simply cannot understand how someone could let such a stunning error into any operating system.

You seem to get it very personally, it almost seems like you are the inventor of the open/seek/read/write/close interface. The use of such an interface in the Hurd, i.e. making the partition appear as a memory block, has nothing to do with the cache. It finally allows to use it like just another kind of memory storage, as the hard drives are all about being a huge array of bytes. The hard drives hardware interface start to look more like just an array of bytes (in the oposition to heads, cylinders and sectors), which I personally find very useful, and I'm glad the software interface is going in the similar direction -- i.e. much cleaner interfaces hiding the actual implementation, which is often much more complicated. This is the object oriented way of designing systems.

I hate to spoil your naivete,

You surely are rude, I must say.

but Intel and AMD don't give a damn about HURD, and they certainly don't design their hardware with this sort of thing in mind.

First of all, what made you so sure that I thought Intel (or AMD for that matter) "gives a damn" about the Hurd? Second of all, do you suggest that if Intel or AMD don't consider the Hurd an important project (if this is what "not giving a damn" means, please forgive me if I don't follow the street slang) then it must be because of the fact that its internal partition access interface is not clean enough? (The Hurd is still POSIX (as well as ISO, ANSI, BSD, Single Unix, SVID, X/Open) compatible, mind you.) I'm sorry but I'm afraid I can't follow your amazing logic.

Although the theoreticians don't like this, computer hardware is complex and non-orthoganal. If the HURD was designed to run on only 64-bit machines with clean MMUs, you'll be waiting a long time until HURD is stable on readily-available hardware.

Now you try to say that the Hurd will work best on better architectures than the most popular mass-produced hardware we have today, which proves "how ridiculous [my] words [about the partition access interface being clean] are," as you kindly pointed out, or am I missing something?

(Does HURD even support 64-bit architectures at this time? If not, then how can you possibly justify the mistake of having filesystem drivers use mmap?)

The Hurd, as I'm sure you already know, supports those architectures which are supported by the underlying microkernel the Hurd itself runs on top of.

I don't give a damn about the politics.

I don't know what scares me more -- a person who don't care about politics, or someone who say so but conclude his arguments with words "But anyway, mmaping an entire partition is really nuts. They're not getting any sympathy from me." -- fortunately, your (or my, for that matter) political ignorance shouldn't be important in our argument (or at very least I hope so).

This is simply bad design. You can attack me with all sorts of accusations that I don't approve because of whatever politics,

I really don't know why are you so afraid of being accused of politics influencing your arguments. Have my answer to your post really made you think that I am suggesting that? Please point out the appropriate part, I'd like to know which part of it has offended you so much (for which I'd like to apologize you in advance, since that was no my intention whatsoever).

but this does not change the fact that someone made an immense error when designing the filesystem servers and certain people thought this error was "elegant."

It seems like those "certain people," some of which have been working on the OS kernels architectures for decades, could learn a lot from you. I strongly suggest you to contact them and make use of your knowledge. You can find some of them working at Carnegie-Mellon University, Berkeley, or Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. The Artificial Intelligence Laboratory on MIT would be a good start. Good luck.

I really didn't mean to flame you personally,

Well, if you didn't mean to "flame" me, than why on Earth have you done it? (I ask, because such a rude attitude doesn't make our discussion about partition access interfaces any easier -- and any nicer as well.)

but this is inexcusably bad design. I don't understand how someone can justify it, rather than admitting that it's a fundamental design problem.

Have you ever stopped to think that maybe you are the one who is wrong here?

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[Anonymous Coward]

i dont give a flyin rats ass about all the shit your talkin about, but i think you really kicked his ass, dude! :) hehe! good job, man, your a hell of a crazy son of a bitch, thats for sure! :)

Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size

[J. Random Software]

The elegant API is read/write with OS-provided buffers. This can be zero-copy, asynchronous, transactional, admit pipes and network associations as well as random-access files, work without vast unused address space (and wasted I/O and physical RAM and TLB contention from trying to guess about readahead and writeback), and make performance much more predictable (you never have to guess which pointer uses will block you and start swapping unless your physical RAM is inadequate for your software).

mmap() is simple when it works, but the things it can't express show it's a poor fit for the problem space.

Solution in search of a problem?

[JavaJoint]

Let's assume that a year from now, there will be a GNU/HURD. Why would anyone use it, when they could use: * Linux * *BSD * Mac OS X * etc etc Are there portions of HURD which would be of interest as Linux kernel modules? I'm not getting this. It was an interesting "coming soon" project to hear about in the early 90's.

Re:Solution in search of a problem?

[child_of_mercy]

well the debian framework is poised to be bolted on around it.

so you'll have all the apps, functionality of a solid, if slightly sluggish linux distro.

in theory the more elgant design should bring performance increases,

and the superirio code maintainability won't need Bitkeeper to submit patches for it.

in theory.

Re:Solution in search of a problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

Very few people will - this is mostly a "because we can" thing. Which is fine in its own right.

Its structure is similar to that of Darwin, the underpinnings of Mac OS X. You can get Darwin for free (PPC and x86, although hardware support is limited).

Might be cool to see if it runs on my box, but beyond that, very little practical application to date....

Re:Solution in search of a problem?

[peter]

> in theory the more elgant design should bring performance increases,

Stupid need-for-portability, making everything slow :(

Re:Solution in search of a problem?

[child_of_mercy]

For sure,

I dunno if it will work but the question was why do they bother.

At one level this could be viewed as a CS experiment, if it can't be made to work then there's a lot of CS theory that should be reviewed.

Explanation please

[Anonymous Coward]

Can some one please explain the difference between this and the Linux kernel? Isn' this much more advanced and better? I don't know, I am not a kernel hacker, I have problems just compiling the kernel.

Re:Explanation please

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that the Linux kernel actually exists.

Re:Explanation please

[Dunkalis]

HURD is the kernel designed by the FSF, the people who made all of the GNU tools you and I use on Linux. It is architecturally different than all other Unix kernels in existence. Older Unix kernels are all monolithic kernels (ie, they are in a single file, vmlinuz on Linux). HURD runs servers that communicate with each other to do the functions that the single Linux kernel does. Go to the HURD website and read one of the technical docs, they are very helpful.

Systems work

[peterb]

Is harder than most people seem to think it is.

That being said, I think the Hurd is pretty much a solution in search of a problem. Who cares? And why? The FreeBSD kernel does everything Hurd purports to want to be able to do, and is more mature, stable, and feature-complete. The same could probably be said of the Linux kernel.

Does that mean the Hurd guys should stop what they're doing? Of course not. Writing operating systems is fun.

It does, however, probably mean that the stuff they're doing isn't really news.

Re:Systems work

[cscx]

Of course not. Writing operating systems is fun.

These guys are obviously smart, and can be writing software to find cures for cancer and AIDS. But, hey, why do any of that when you can be working on HURD?

Re:Systems work

[peterb]

Well, that's a little harsh. I mean, we all do things that we want to do. I "could" be writing software to cure cancer and AIDS, but instead I'm working at a storage startup trying to make the big bucks and work with a great group of people. We can't all sacrifice our lives for the Great Cause.

And I agree that 20 years ago, "wouldn't it be nice if there was a free operating system" seemed like such a cause. But ever since BSDi settled the unix issues, it seems to me that BSD [footnote 1] became that free operating system.

-pete
footnote 1: Substitute Linux depending on your political preferences. Void where prohibited by law. Call before midnight tonight for complete refund of price of purchase. Terms available, don't be fooled by cheap imitations, no salesman will visit your home. My apologies to Tom Waits.

Re:Systems work

[dvdeug]

These guys are obviously smart, and can be writing software to find cures for cancer and AIDS.

If anyone had a theory on how to do that, the National Institute of Health would be shoveling money at them.

But, hey, why do any of that when you can be working on HURD?

And I guess talking at slashdot is the best you can do. If you want to harass someone for doing something when they could be engaged in something better, perhaps you should get up and start working on _something_.

Re:Systems work

[paladin_tom]

Who cares?

Me.

And why?

Because of the Hurd's multi-server microkernel architecture. If we keep relying on monolithic kernels (Linux, *BSD) forever, we eventually won't be able to keep up with proprietary OSs, and the Free/Open Source software movement will die.

It does, however, probably mean that the stuff they're doing isn't really news.

There's a group of Free Software developers choosing to truly innovate. If that isn't news, there's something wrong with the Free and Open Source communities.

Re:Systems work

[Anonymous Coward]

"The FreeBSD kernel does everything Hurd purports to want to be able to do, and is more mature, stable, and feature-complete"

WHAT?!!!! Have you even LOOKED at the HURD homepage?

FreeBSD is like HURD in that they both offer semi-POSIX compatibility. THATS IT. read a little before you post like a fucking tool.

Re:Systems work

[peterb]

> Because of the Hurd's multi-server microkernel
> architecture. If we keep relying on monolithic
> kernels (Linux, *BSD) forever, we eventually
> won't' be able to keep up with proprietary OSs,
> and the Free/Open Source software movement will die

Whahuh? What the hell are you talking about?

What in tarnation does the architecture of a kernel have to do with "keeping up" with some other OS? That's a completely orthagonal issue.

Hint: You can write unmaintainable crap code with any architecture. You can write clean maintainable code with any architecture.

I see absolutely no evidence for your hysterical assertion.

Re:Systems work

[Cro Magnon]

Well, so far, Linux (and even BSD) has been keeping up better than the Hurd has!

Ironic

[jeramybsmith]

GNU was intended to solve the problem of their not being a free unixlike OS. Now there are like 50 but still no GNU. Maybe they should refocus on providing a great userland?

Re:Ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

A great userland.

GNU is already a complete OS without the kernel, and they provide a userland that is so feature rich, stable and free that it is one of the best in the world.

gcc anyone ? fileutils ? sed ? emacs ? findutils ?

I can understand that people are annoyed by
Mr Stallman's endless rants about 'Thee hast to say GNU/Linux and Free as in Freedom'.

However, if you would take the time to LISTEN to him, in stead of being annoyed, you might find dat this man a) Wrote masses of great free sofware (gcc is the most important free software project in the world imho) b) Forsees a serious 'freedom problem' in the next years.

And he is right ! Think about it.

Re:Ironic

[Arandir]

They already did provide a great userland. Heck, everything BUT the Hurd is userland.

Re:Ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

Even most of Hurd is userland, or at least userspace.

Re:Ironic

[Arandir]

Bzzzt! Userland is not the same as userspace.

haha

[Anonymous Coward]

LMAO, that was classic.

Nonstandard Partitioning?

[LinuxGeek]

added Stallman. "I don't think it was realized how bad it is practically speaking not to be able to use whatever your disk partitioning is. Clearly most people are not going to repartition their disks to be able to try out our Hurd based system."

What kind of systems are they using for development that they just noticed the inability to read current large partitioning schemes and interact with them? This dosen't do much to encourage me to try HURD and hope it will support much of my newfangled hardware.

Re:Nonstandard Partitioning?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to know. RMS runs a 4 year old toshiba laptop with an external happy-hacking keyboard and a wheelmouse.

Re:Nonstandard Partitioning?

[LinuxGeek]

IIRC, that is about what RMS was running the last time I saw him in person at Linux expo '99 in Raleigh. Surely some kind benefactor could buy some up to date hardware for such a talented contributor to the world of software.

Maybe we could start a (non-PayPal) fund to help him get some ( hardware).

Re:Nonstandard Partitioning?

[srn_test]

I'd love to know where they buy their HDD - I haven't seen anything smaller than 20GB for about a year.

Maybe they have a _lot_ of partitions?

Re:Nonstandard Partitioning?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, He's a millionare. If he wanted shiny things he could just buy them.

Re:Nonstandard Partitioning?

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely some kind benefactor could buy some up to date hardware for such a talented contributor to the world of software.

Ooops, sorry, you've misunderstood; this conversation is about Richard Stallman.

Re:Nonstandard Partitioning?

[Anonymous Coward]

A millionaire, that's funny.

If stupid ideas and stupider statement were dollers maybe.

What is HURD?

[randomErr]

http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd.html

GNU HURD is a slimmer re-write of the UNIX kernel that is completely OOP.

Here's a cut and paste from the homepage:

The Hurd is not the most advanced kernel known to the planet (yet), but it does have a number of enticing features:

it's free software
Anybody can use, modify, and redistribute it under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).
it's compatible
The Hurd provides a familiar programming and user environment. For all intents and purposes, the Hurd is a modern Unix-like kernel. The Hurd uses the GNU C Library, whose development closely tracks standards such as ANSI/ISO, BSD, POSIX, Single Unix, SVID, and X/Open.
it's built to survive
Unlike other popular kernel software, the Hurd has an object-oriented structure that allows it to evolve without compromising its design. This structure will help the Hurd undergo major redesign and modifications without having to be entirely rewritten.
it's scalable
The Hurd implementation is aggressively multithreaded so that it runs efficiently on both single processors and symmetric multiprocessors. The Hurd interfaces are designed to allow transparent network clusters (collectives), although this feature has not yet been implemented.
it's extensible
The Hurd is an attractive platform for learning how to become a kernel hacker or for implementing new ideas in kernel technology. Every part of the system is designed to be modified and extended.
it's stable
It is possible to develop and test new Hurd kernel components without rebooting the machine (not even accidentally). Running your own kernel components doesn't interfere with other users, and so no special system privileges are required. The mechanism for kernel extensions is secure by design: it is impossible to impose your changes upon other users unless they authorize them or you are the system administrator.
it exists
The Hurd is real software that works Right Now. It is not a research project or a proposal. You don't have to wait at all before you can start using and developing it.

Re:What is HURD?

[Eil]

This structure will help the Hurd undergo major redesign and modifications without having to be entirely rewritten.

"...but we might change out the whole kernel from time to time when things aren't looking so good."

Re:What is HURD?

[jpt.d]

it's free software with chains
Anybody can use, modify, and redistribute it under the terms of the GNU General Public Virus (GPV).

Just a joke :-) Trolling I am not, marketh not be troll.

Re:What is HURD?

[Anonymous Coward]

do you have any idea how gay you are?

Re:What is HURD?

[i_am_nitrogen]

In a microkernel system, the kernel is nothing. Look at VSTa for another example of a microkernel. All the drivers, modules, OS compatibility layers, etc. are in userland. The kernel is just what handles running the tasks and letting them communicate.

Re:What is HURD?

[nutbar]

"...but we might change out the whole kernel from time to time when things aren't looking so good."

Sorry, but that is just propaganda. The hurd uses a microkernel, not a monolithic kernel - so in saying "the whole kernel" you are actually only talking about a rather small part of the system in comparison to, say, Linux, where the kernel performs a rather large array of tasks. Having to replace "the whole kernel" is not as huge of a task as you make it out to be, that in itself is one of the advantages of a microkernel based design. The main problem that the hurd suffers from is a lack of developers * time.
Nobody gets paid to work on the hurd, AFAIK.

Re:What is HURD?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's so "small" why has it taken 20 years to write and still be nowhere near useable?

Re:What is HURD?

[Eil]

You are correct, but I think it's still not a small issue. The core functions of a kernel are the most complex and time-consuming to develop and maintain.

One think you could say about Hurd developers is that they're not it for the vanity.

Re:What is HURD?

[paladin_tom]

Perfectly reasonable, since the Hurd isn't a kernel, it just sits between a microkernel and glibc.

Re:What is HURD?

[Cro Magnon]

The Hurd is real software that works Right Now. It is not a research project or a
proposal. You don't have to wait at all before you can start using and developing it.

ROTFLMFAO!!

Re:What is HURD?

[randomErr]

Dude, why ya posting to a topic that has been dead for like a week? Are you a karma hog or what?

I wouldn't have know about your post unless I was monitoring this article.

Re:What is HURD?

[Cro Magnon]

Because I've been away from /. since Thursday and this was the first I saw of this article. Besides, I'm still more timely than the Hurd is. :)

Re:BenchMarks + Is it a File System issue ??

[chicobaud]

I would like to know that too (benchmarks) ... but it seems there is ??? a lot of fog on the horizon ???

Plus it could be a file system problem rather than a kernel problem.

Catch that at the end?

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't have to wait at all before you can start using and developing it.

Not "developing for it", but "developing it".

How about "fuck you and just give me an OS I can use"?

Relevance

[Perianwyr Stormcrow]

You could be out masturbating right now, instead you're writing comments on Slashdot. I mean, what are you using your energy for, anyway?

Re:Relevance

[Anonymous Coward]

Shit! You're right! Bye

Re:Relevance

[Anonymous Coward]

You could be out masturbating right now, instead you're writing comments on Slashdot.

I fail to see the distinction.

Re:Relevance

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not do both? you've got two hands, right?

Why OSKit?

[Animats]

OSKit is a collection of operating systems parts for use by researchers, not a production system. It's intended to be straightforward and modular, but not heavily optimized. If the Hurd team is switching to OSKit, they must be in deep trouble.

Now if they were switching to L4, that would be cool. But it would be a research effort.

And why does anyone, at this late date, care much about high-speed serial line support?

Re:Why OSKit?

[Anonymous Coward]

As a matter of fact, there is a port of the Hurd to L4 in progress.

Here's some info:

http://kerneltrap.org/node.php?id=367

Enjoy!

Re:Why OSKit?

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the many problems with GNU mach was it only support linux 2.0 drivers. I guess that is really just a sympom of the larger problem that it wasn't maintained anymore. A year ago OSKit supported 2.2 drivers.

BTW there is work to port HURD to L4. But a higher priority is getting HURD more useful, which means fixing problems like the small parititions.

HURD is supposed to sit on a microkernel, but it was really tied to GNU mach. Porting to OSKit mach will solve some of these depenecies making a L4 port easier later.

Re:Why OSKit?

[jpmorgan]

The Hurd will be switching to L4, when the NDAs on the latest version of L4 are dropped and there's a real implementation to work from.

That port is fairly extensive, so right now they're moving to Mach + OSKit, since OSKit supports the Linux 2.2 device drivers, something Hurd is sorely lacking.

Re:Why OSKit?

[Teferi]

There is a port of HURD to L4 in process. I was under the assumption that that was going to be the official HURD...guess not.
Shame the 'main' branch is still on Mach...it may have been neat back when virtual memory was still new and hot, but it's really showing its age now

Re:Why OSKit?

[peter]

NDA as in non-disclosure agreement? Say what ... what happened to the freedom/liberty idea? (Honest question here, I haven't even googled for anything on this topic.)

Re:Why OSKit?

[Anonymous Coward]

And why does anyone, at this late date, care much about high-speed serial line support?

Serial in the sense of RS-232 (115Kbps)? Or serial in the sense of USB 2.0 (400Mbps) and IEEE 1394a (400Mbps)?

Re:Why OSKit?

[jpmorgan]

The developers of L4 are only releasing the specs to the next generation under NDA currently. The NDAs will be dropped, specificaitons and implementations will be available and Free in a couple of months.

So, Linus was rfight?

[Royster]

From Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution

So at the time I started work on Linux in 1991, people assumed portability would come from a microkernel approach. You see, this was sort of the research darling at the time for computer scientists. However, I am a pragmatic person, and at the time I felt that microkernels (a) were experimental, (b) were obviously more complex than monolithic Kernels, and (c) executed notably slower than monolithic kernels. Speed matters a lot in a real-world operating system, and so a lot of the research dollars at the time were spent on examining optimization for microkernels to make it so they could run as fast as a normal kernel. The funny thing is if you actually read those papers, you find that, while the researchers were applying their optimizational tricks on a microkernel, in fact those same tricks could just as easily be applied to traditional kernels to accelerate their execution.

Re:So, Linus was rfight?

[Pseudonym]

Linus was right at the time, yes. If he were starting Linux today, however, none of those three points would be correct. They're not experimental any more (WinNT before version 4.0, QNX and BeOS are/were all mainstream microkernel OSes), they do not execute notably slower than monolithic kernels (yeah, the Mindcraft survey was rigged, but Linux and NT are still competitive) and (apart from NT) they are no more complex than Linux is today.

On the other hand, "I know I can do it and get it working" would still be a valid argument for him to write a monolithic kernel today, but that's open source for you.

Re:So, Linus was rfight?

[Royster]

How about this quote?

In short: message passing as the fundamental operation of the OS is just an excercise in computer science masturbation. It may feel good, but you don't actually get anything DONE. -- Linus Torvalds

Re:So, Linus was rfight?

[Pseudonym]

For every Linus quote there is an equal and opposite Linus quote.

Everything is a stream of bytes. Repeat until enlightened. -- Linus Torvalds

Re:So, Linus was rfight?

[Animats]

As it turns out, microkernels aren't all that portable, because they need close ties to the hardware to support all the fast interprocess communication that they do. But because they're small, the fact that they contain CPU-dependent code isn't as much of a limitation. Porting is more work per line of code, but there aren't as many lines to port.

Look at QNX and L4 as examples of fast microkernels. About all the kernel does is manage memory, interprocess communication, and task switching. Everything else is in user space, where it's easier to debug and can't mess up as much when it breaks.

In addition, if you're serious about security, a system where only the microkernel is trusted is the only thing that has any hope of working. In a microkernel system, the kernel tends not to change much over time, once it's working. New functionality is all in user space. You're not patching holes forever, like we are now.

You do take a performance hit, but in a world where Java, Perl, and XML are used for production work, it's tiny by comparison.

Re:So, Linus was rfight?

[platypus]

I'm by no means an expert (esp. not for micro-kernels, that's why I ask), just a regular linux-kernel lurker, and reading all these arguments for micro-kernels leave me wondering if the theory isn't a bit behind the hardware development.

I see linux kernel developers seeking solutions for very complicated hardware architectures:

• Hyperthreading
  
• multi-core cpu architectures (IBM Power4)
  
• "non-homogenous" memory architectures for multiprocessor machines (NUMA, etc.)
  
• more and more "intelligent" storage devices
  
• high-performance 3d graphics
  
• soft/hard real-time performance
  

and so on..., where all of these things can occur combined.

I'm wondering if a micro-kernel is theoretically as good as a monolitic one in mastering the above difficulties - and if code for all of this had to be integrated in a microkernel, and if this thing really should be called microkernel after that.
And as far as I know, QNX isn't really an example for an OS which shines on an 8-way box.

Another thing:
You do take a performance hit, but in a world where Java, Perl, and XML are used for production work, it's tiny by comparison.

This I doubt, because there are quite a few things an os can do to help gain performance for typical application tasks. See for instance ingo molnars work on thread startup performance -100000 threads in a very short time (some secs) compared to some minutes on linux before that.
This work was done because of (Oracle/Sun)'s needs for their application - and java needs everything fast which is related to threads.

Re:So, Linus was rfight?

[Anonymous Coward]

He also wrote:

"In fifteen years, I expect somebody else to come along and say, hey, I can do everything that Linux can do but I can be lean and mean about it because my system won't have twenty years of baggage holding it back."

Re:So, Linus was rfight?

[Animats]

The microkernel people are probably ahead in soft/hard real-time performance, because QNX is a hard real-time OS where the real-time tasks run in user space. (Contrast RTLinux).

Intelligent storage devices aren't a big issue either way.

3D graphics cand present some problems, because the integration betwen the GPU and the CPU can be tight. There's per-process state out in graphics board memory. Neither QNX or L4 really addresses that.

A message-passing microkernel seems to be a win for multiprocessors, because there's a lot more synchronization activity going on. Interprocessor locks in message-passing systems are very short, just long enough to update a queue, because the microkernel never does anything that takes long.

Non-homogeneous memory architectures are one of those ideas that keep coming back, but are such a pain they go away again. Some 1970s mainframes had "fast" and "slow" memory. So did early Amigas. Cacheing seems to win out over programmer-visible non-homogeneous memory.

Re:So, Linus was rfight?

[platypus]

Thanks for answering the questions.

So long as RMS is in control, HURD is useless

[just another cynic]

(for me at least - I'm talking about my desktop GNU/Linux box here)

Because :

(1) Companies can't release closed source kernel drivers (ala nvidia) for HURD (afaik).

(2) RMS is virtually impossible to deal with, compounding (1).

Re:So long as RMS is in control, HURD is useless

[Anonymous Coward]

How much sense does your post make? Why would companies be able to release closed-source drivers for one GPL'ed OS, but not another? Am I missing something? AFAIK, it's actually easier to do closed-source things with the HURD, since different pieces of software (like drivers) are way more separate than Linux kernel modules are.

Of course, I am no kernel expert, so I may just be wrong.

Re:So long as RMS is in control, HURD is useless

[Have Blue]

See parent's point #2.

Re:So long as RMS is in control, HURD is useless

[Anonymous Coward]

A couple things. First of all RMS in what way is RMS in control of HURD? Or anything? AFAIK he hasn't contributed a single line of code to HURD. You are as in control of HURD as he is. Well he is a visionary so people might do what he recommends while you're just another cynic on /.

Don't expect 1 to be around much longer. As it becomes possible to load more and more parts of the kernel (ala nvidia) Linus may withdraw his permission to have closed source "drivers" when these "drivers" start becoming too much of the kernel.

Also it may be possible with HURD to essentially have "user mode" drivers. If you don't need to link with the kernel you aren't covered by the GPL. Its like using gcc to to write commercial programs or GNU/Linux to run commercial closed programs.

2) is only true if you disagree with him ;) Don't forget that he recommended the ogg vorbis guys change to a BSD style license from the lgpl. He doesn't isn't the mainiac that /. portrays of him going around insisting everything needs to be free.

Thoughts of the future?

[dacarr]

I'm seeing it now. Hurd will be to Linux what OS/2 Warp is to Windoze.

Kudos to RMS for fighting the good fight, but he's already contributed significantly to Linux. I really don't think it'll go farther than that.

Re:Thoughts of the future?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean "GNU/Linux," right?

Re:Thoughts of the future?

[asv108]

I'm seeing it now. Hurd will be to Linux what OS/2 Warp is to Windoze.

Not Really, becuase OS/2 Warp was released well before windows 95, I think it was in the early spring of 95 if I remember correctly, while windows 95 was released in the late summer. It really shouldn't have been released because it was quite buggy. I remember returning it to EB the same week I bought it, after finding out I needed windows disks in order to run windows programs.

Re:Thoughts of the future?

[ShavenYak]

I remember returning it to EB the same week I bought it, after finding out I needed windows disks in order to run windows programs.

I seem to recall there were two versions: the one you apparently bought, OS/2 for Windows Users, and a slightly more expensive version (because of royalties to MS) which included the necessary bits of Windows 3.1. The idea was you bought the cheaper one if you already had Windows and didn't want to pay MS twice (if you had a pirated copy of Win 3.1, s/twice/once/).

Re:Thoughts of the future?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. He means "Linux." "Linux" is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds, and has been since 1994. The name "Linux" describes "computer operating system software." In other words, the name "Linux" describes the entire operating system, not just the kernel as some people from the FSF would have you believe.

Because "Linux" is a trademark, it is illegal to modify, combine, or otherwise dilute the mark without explicit permission from Linus Torvalds. So the use of the name "GNU/Linux" is not only inaccurate, it's also infringing, and therefore illegal under United States jurisdiction, and jurisdictions in countries signatory to the Berne Convention.

Re:Thoughts of the future?

[Anonymous Coward]

RMS has contributed to a heck of a lot more than Linux. He is only a part of GNU too.

OT I know, but GNU rocks because all that software builds/runs on more OS/archs than anything else I know of. This is where the real kudos should go.

Just more Vaporware?

[Flamesplash]

The Hurd is not the most advanced kernel known to the planet (yet), but it does have a number of enticing features:

Given all the comments I've been reading it's seems to me like this is nothing more than Vaporware.

I may be the most advance kerenel theory known to the planet, but if an OS runs on a computer in the artic that isn't connected to the internet, does anyone care?

Re:Just more Vaporware?

[MissMyNewton]

Given all the comments I've been reading it's seems to me like this is nothing more than Vaporware.

Maybe not. But right now it's clearly meant to be Hurd and not seen. ;-)

Re:Just more Vaporware?

[scotch]

Given all the comments I've been reading it's seems to me like this is nothing more than Vaporware.

Not to flame, but never form an opinion on anything important from the opinions expressed in the comments pages of slashdot.

Present comment, excepted of course.

Re:Just more Vaporware?

[peter]

Hurd is not vapourware. Debian has packages in unstable for hurd-i386. See http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/unstable/main/. I don't know if the next stable release will include hurd. (By the time it's ready for release, maybe Hurd will be finished. :)

Re:Just more Vaporware?

[Anonymous Coward]

ok, someone mod this punny little fucker down

Re:Just more Vaporware?

[Flamesplash]

Not to flame, but never form an opinion on anything important from the opinions expressed in the comments pages of slashdot.

I think I followed your rule pretty well... ;)

just poking fun.

Relevancy:

[Wakko Warner]

It's being built so that GNU weenies will finally be able to claim a 100% PURE GNU OPERATING SYSTEM. This will gain them fame, fortune, and, their primary objective:

Mad hoes.

Yes. You see, the GNU HURD project is just a front. These guys are just looking for a little lovin'. I, for one, will be downloading and running HURD 1.0 as soon as it's released, to support the libidos of these great, visionary men.

- A.P.

Re:Relevancy:

[wildcard023]

libidos?

Isn't that -lidios?

--
Mike Nugent

Re:Relevancy:

[Mocenigo]

Yes. You see, the GNU HURD project is just a front. These guys are just looking for a little lovin'. I, for one, will be downloading and running HURD 1.0 as soon as it's released, to support the libidos of these great, visionary men.

Wow, what we really need is to write a software library named "ido" or "idos" (something like "Implementation of DOS calls" to allow also DOS software to run after a recompile). Then we would have libidos.so in /usr/share/lib

Re:Relevancy:

[DrXym]

And by pure, they mean capable of doing fuck all seeing as it won't have X Windows, Apache, Perl, OpenSSH and a bunch of other non-GPL software that makes an OS useful for doing stuff.

Re:Relevancy:

[Anonymous Coward]

Projects of this caliber are never "released". They're always in the perpetual alpha stages. The 1-2GB partition size limitation is just icing on the cake of that argument. How long have we had affordable 2 gig drives? 8 years? HURD is DEAD and the only reason it is still around is because RMS has it as a pet project. Well, after 20 years of development it is a piece of shit.

Re:Relevancy:

[Anonymous Coward]

RMS doesn't work on the Hurd.

20 years...

[bobtheprophet]

Sigh. Now we see where the enlightenment team gets its inspiration.

Look at that quote ...

[Anonymous Coward]

When does later become never?

Couldn't have said it better myself. :)

Delayed?

[grub]

I want a new slashdot poll:

Which long awaited project will be the first to become reality?
a) Duke Nukem Forever
b) SMP for OpenBSD
c) GNU/Hurd
d) The second coming of Jeebus

Re:Delayed?

[Xenographic]

That couldn't ever be a real /. poll.

The last option has to be:
d) The second coming of Cowboy Neal.

Re:Delayed?

[ceejayoz]

Well, D is the most likely one.

And that's coming from an athiest.

Re:Delayed?

[Anonymous Coward]

eeewwwwwwww.

Re:Delayed?

[isorox]

d) The second coming of Cowboy Neal. /me shudders at the thought of him doing it once....

Re:Delayed?

[Anonymous Coward]

At least OpenBSD has a SMP branch in CVS

Re:Delayed?

[Xeriar]

That couldn't ever be a real /. poll.

The last option has to be:
d) The second coming of Cowboy Neal.

The poll would not be about Cowboyneal's sex life!

(Sorry, sorry, someone please name a penance)

Re:Delayed?

[SillyHamster]

e.) CowboyNeal (is toasted by flamethrowers.)

Re:Delayed?

[ignorant_newbie]

Duke Nukem will get to the $100 bill first, because the others are figments of your imagination

Re:Delayed?

[nutbar]

e) CowboyNeal gets a girlfriend

Re:Delayed?

[Soul-Burn666]

e) Team Fortress II

Re:Delayed?

[grub]

At least OpenBSD has a SMP branch in CVS

True enough, I didn't mean it as a serious shot. OpenBSD is my *NIX of choice. (see my user info :))

Re:Delayed?

[Cid Highwind]

e) Enlightenment 17
f) Any BitBoys 3D accelerator
g) The secong coming of Amiga

Re:Delayed?

[Anonymous Coward]

(Sorry, sorry, someone please name a penance)

The second coming of Cowboy Neal.

Hahahaha!

[erroneus]

I'm sorry, but I just think they're trying too hard.

I thought the GNU/HURD thing was supposed to be more advanced than most other kernels. What's this with the 1 to 2GB limit? How long have they been planning this thing? It reminds me of famous quotes such as "...they'll never need more than 640k..."

Call me a troll but that's a little more than a minor oversight. Is RMS really interested in putting his name on this one?

Re:Hahahaha!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's such an easy quote, and yet you still managed to screw it up.

Re:Hahahaha!

[jpmorgan]

Uh, it's more like: 'Yeah, yeah, we know the partition limit is annoying, but we only have so much time and there are more important things to work on.'

Rip Linux

[Citizen of Earth]

OSKit's Mach which will help them support faster serial I/O and larger hard discs. Currently GNU/Hurd will only support somewhere between 1 to 2 GB partitions.

So why don't they just rip the grungy device-driver stuff from the Linux kernel rather reinventing a square-cornered wheel? Perhaps they're not familiar with the concepts of Free Software and re-use.

Re:Rip Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it does support linux device-drivers. The problem is that they are as you say, grungy.

Re:Rip Linux

[dvdeug]

So why don't they just rip the grungy device-driver stuff from the Linux kernel rather reinventing a square-cornered wheel?

They're using the OSKit's Mach, which has already ripped the grungy device-driver stuff from Linux and repackged in a nice convientent Mach-sized package, which is what the Hurd needs.

Re:Rip Linux

[mandolin]

So why don't they just rip the grungy device-driver stuff from the Linux kernel rather reinventing a square-cornered wheel?

If it's like everything else in FSF-land, it's because they want the copyright assignment on the code. linux/drivers/char/serial.c is copyrighted by several authors; maybe they'd rather re-implement 6000 LOC than ask those authors for the assignment. (or maybe linus laughed in their face..)

Of course, given the whole assignment issue, it also suprises me that they're moving to OSKit. Hell I thought that was why they didn't like (for very loose definitions of "like") Linux.

Re:Rip Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

They're using the OSKit's Mach, which has already ripped the grungy device-driver stuff from Linux

Aha! I hope RMS will be calling his kernel HURD/Linux, or I shall go on a tirade why we should never forget that the kernel is the most important part of an operating system.

AND

[Anonymous Coward]

give up

And please, under no circumstances, work on any more projects. Just... I don't know... work at Denny's or something.

Re:AND

[Anonymous Coward]

there are hundreds of other projects on sourceforge still in the planning stage - I'm sure they could use some help!

Waiting to stampede?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oooh!!!

This is the sound of me, waiting to exhale.

more than a nuisance

[nuckin futs]

according to the article:
if you get a moderate size disk you have to divide it into smaller partitions, which is a nuisance.

I'm sorry, but I have an 80gig drive. If I need between 40 to 80 partitions (between 1 and 2 gigs each), it's not just a nuisance.

Re:more than a nuisance

[SN74S181]

That brings back visions of the olden days, when I got ahold of a big 330 meg hard drive, for my '286 running DOS.... The old 32 MB partition limit and all that...

Re:more than a nuisance

[jpetts]

If I need between 40 to 80 partitions (between 1 and 2 gigs each), it's not just a nuisance.

Hell yes! You'd have to use Chinese or some other character set that more than 26 letters for all those!!!

Linus was right

[zurab]

To solve the serial port problem, the GNU project is switching from the GNU Mach to the OSKit Mach, a Mach based on the OSKit for OS development from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah. "That version of Mach is supposed to get high speed serial line support, although it apparently isn't there in it yet," Stallman said. Before the GNU project could switch to the OSKit Mach, it had to rewrite the terminal support in the Hurd to support virtual consoles.

By the time these guys switch to the new kernel, test all modules, etc., etc. they will have to update it again for new speed improvements and HD sizes.

Linus was right that Microkernels tend to be overdesigned, give up speed, and are less practical than monolithic. This is the living proof.

Re:Linus was right

[Anonymous Coward]

Microkernels tend to be overdesigned, give up speed, and are less practical than monolithic. This is the living proof.

ya... just like Java ("a class for every grain of sand").

Re:Linus was right

[nutbar]

Linus was right that Microkernels tend to be overdesigned, give up speed, and are less practical than monolithic. This is the living proof.

Making such a broad generalisation about microkernels is just that, a generalisation. The two other major OSes on the market today, Windows NT (2K, XP, whatever) and MacOS X are both based on a microkernel architecture. Sure, they may have bastardised the "textbook way" slightly, but they are still microkernels.

GNULIX!

[orangepeel]

GNULIX!

Re:GNULIX!

[WalletBoy]

Neelix!

Beowolf

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine a Beowolf cluster of these.

.. and in other news

[Anonymous Coward]

.. commodore announced plans to introduce a version of its VIC-20 line of personal computers that has a whopping 64k RAM. When asked what the so-called "Commodore-64" bodes for the HURD, RMS replied: what? 64K? We're still trying to count to 8!

Apologies Not Accepted

[Anonymous Coward]

The Hurd project is another example of volunteers for Free Software.
It might one day benefit you directly, in the same sense that
the GNU project has benefited you in the past, throughout our life.

Show some respect to the developers of Hurd. Fart their way?
Unless you are a major kernel developer from a competing OS,
you are in no position to speak this way. It is not even a joke.

( I hope you are not a typical Slashdot reader, for it
will be a disgrace if are about to read such postings on this site.)

Re:Apologies Not Accepted

[GreyWolf3000]

Whoever modded this down should be ashamed of themselves--really, good point parent.

It's sad when..

[robbo]

.. the majority of comments attached to a non-funny story are moderated as "Funny". sigh.

Re:It's sad when..

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL

2^64

[Anonymous Coward]

2^64 = 1,677,216 TB. Pixie dust won't even come close. But happy thoughts might work.

Re:2^64

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Your calculator is broken.

2^64 = 18,446,744,073,709,551,616, or
16,777,216 terabytes, 1 TB = 2^40 bytes

(Amazingly, the lame(ness) filter did not vomit all over this post.)

Slow progress annoys

[dh003i]

People get sick of hearing "well, just wait a little bit longer".

I mean, the Linux kernel has taken off in a very short time (about 10 years). It was written by one person, Linux Torvalds (almost wrote Linux Pauling there, that'd be a blooper). Why is it taking the folks working on GNU/Hurd 19+ years to make a useable kernel? Is it because there just aren't enough developers, or they're going about it in a lackluster way? Or is it something about microkernels which makes them longer projects?

Also, why should I switch from Debian GNU/Linux to Debian GNU/HURD when HURD finally becomes useable? From my understanding, the HURD kernel is notably slower than the Linux kernel, so why would I switch? What are the advantages to this HURD kernel?

I'm not trying to dump on the folks at FSF. I love software that the FSF has created. I love the GNU GPL. But why spend all this time and resources making another kernel which is GPL'ed? I mean, Linux is GPL'ed right now, so what's the beef? It will continue to be GPL'ed. If Linus wanted to put it under another license, he would have done so long long ago.

I'm not saying that the developers of HURD should just call it quits. 19 years is alot of time to spend on something which never comes to fruitation. If they like doing this, they should continue developing HURD.

Re:Slow progress annoys

[Anonymous Coward]

> I mean, the Linux kernel has taken off in a very short time (about 10 years). It was written by one person, Linux Torvalds (almost wrote Linux Pauling there, that'd be a blooper).

You seriously think that the Linux kernel was written by Linus, all by himself, for all these past ten years? That'll come as a great shock to Alan Cox et al..

Re:Slow progress annoys

[Lussarn]

It was written by one person, Linux Torvalds

And Bill Gates wrote windows, all of it.

Re:Slow progress annoys

[Anonymous Coward]

Who the hell is Linux Torvalds? I've heard of Linus Torvalds, though.

Re:Slow progress annoys

[dh003i]

LOL, ok that's an exagerration. But why has HURD taken almost two decades (probably more) just to reach the point where you can USE it for daily use, where as the Linux kernel reached that point much quicker (its certainly useable today, and that's about 10 years, and it's been useable for a while)?

Re:Slow progress annoys

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not trying to dump on the folks at FSF. I love software that the FSF has created. I love the GNU GPL. But why spend all this time and resources making another kernel which is GPL'ed?

Maybe they just enjoy writing an operating system? Hurd is quite fun you know. I am sorry that your sick of the delays but how about just being happy that people would take the time write software for you to use freely?

Re:Slow progress annoys

[nomadic]

I mean, the Linux kernel has taken off in a very short time (about 10 years).

Uhh, since when in software development cycles has 10 years been a very short time?

Re:Slow progress annoys

[Hitokage_Nishino]

He's confusing popularity with usability.

Re:Slow progress annoys

[Bishop]

Linux kernel has taken off in a very short time (about 10 years).

Try two years maybe less. Seriously. People were doing real work in a Linux environment running the version 0.99.x kernels which were release in 1993. Linux ran X, vi, emacs, and the GNU tools. For a lot of acedemics on a limited budget this was more then enough.

well, duh

[cowtamer]

Unlike other popular kernel software, the Hurd has an object-oriented structure that allows it to evolve without compromising its design. This structure will help the Hurd undergo major redesign and modifications without having to be entirely rewritten.

And you guys are wondering why it's taken 19 years???

Re:well, duh

[Anonymous Coward]

It because they stopped develope HURD for some stupid reason. Maybe RMS is so busy with his stupid EMACS operating system.

After Linus did not give a shit for this GNU/LINUX thingy, RMS finally has someone else picked up the HURD develepement again. RMS is stupid many of the times. Anyway, he lost his credit when he stop coding much. Linus still has a large audium because code talks, bullshit walks.

Re:well, duh

[PSC]

the Hurd has an object-oriented structure [...] And you guys are wondering why it's taken 19 years???

Says it all :-)

Remind me again....

[jone1941]

I thought the beauty of a Mach microkernel is that it is only in charge of passing messages...if there were hard drive/serial io issues wouldn't that be a limitation of the disk io server? I'm sure someone out there has an answer for this...in fact I'm sure that if I looked hard enough I could find a good explanation of this. However, given that this project has been going on for so long, and it is probably the most idealistic of all of the GNU projects, shouldn't they have gotten the mach piece right before they started everything else? Let the reasonable responses begin...

I guess this makes sense

[happystink]

They better make sure that Hurd supports hard drives up to 20 terabytes or so, since that'll be about the average size by the time Hurd ever gets done.

Fortune...

[imag0]

My fortune at the bottom of the page on this story:

Stenderup's Law: The sooner you fall behind, the more time you will have to catch up.

Yep, 19 years sounds about right.

Can we get a new category?

[BiOFH]

For a name I would suggest the "No one really gives a shit any longer" category.

Whether you choose to make the icon a pic of RMS beating a dead horse or a BeOS logo is up to you...

Experimental is good.

[matman]

I wish that fewer people would be so damned hardline pragmatic. It's worth putting time into stuff that could be cool and to try to do things in ways that are nice. Maybe it'll fail, but it's worth the attempt, even if it only serves as an example of what doesn't work.

Re:Experimental is good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you provide links to some of the papers which have been published on this research which the GNU/HURD project is doing? It seems to me they are providing a useable system (RMS reads his email on it!) based on Mach and GNU components.

That's all well and good

[Anonymous Coward]

but will I be able to play Duke Nuke'em Forever on Hurd?

LOL - MOD PARENT UP!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Then, please kick me in the balls and do a square dance on my face with golf shoes. Thank you.

Good news for gamers

[Anonymous Coward]

3DRealms announced today that Duke Nukem Forever would be finished and released for exclusively the GNU/Hurd platform, coinciding with the ship date of this new great OS!

Don't forget...

[Anonymous Coward]

e) Thrustmaster Cougar
f) LSB (for real)
g) goatse.cx becoming a Fortune 500 conglomerate.

Pioneers of the DNF development model

[msobkow]

I have to wonder if the 3D-Realms team didn't use Hurd as their development/scheduling model...

Stability

[Anonymous Coward]

Microkernels are much more stable than monolithic kernels. For example, Solaris uses a monolithic kernel, NT uses a microkernel. Which one runs longer? See? - that's the advantage of microkernels.

What GNU/Mach/OSKit/HURD will be is a unix-like OS with all the famed stability of NT. I can hardly wait. It'll probably ship real soon now, just like they've been promising for the last 20 years.

Note to RMS - if you don't put Mach in the name, you're denying them their due credit. Seriously. I refuse to type GNU/Linux ever again until I see Mach/HURD on every FSF website.

Re:Stability

[Jagen]

The NT kernel was actually pretty solid, until they decided to stick some drivers in Ring 0, ie kernel level so they could crash the machine, that was retarded. But apparently people wanted graphic performance on a server OS

The dark side.. er. half.. um portion of penguins.

[Art Popp]

The best reason for HURD: "Because they want it that way."

No one should have to justify what they want to build to you or anyone. Free software is not about the GPL. It's about freedoms. If these people want to build the most paradigmatically pure kernel ever conceived of, I think that's great.

If they want to turn an architecturally useful chunk of marble into a useless statue of some kid named David. That's great too.

When I enter a bunch of keywords into freshmeat and pick over the results, I occasionally ask myself, "What was this guy thinking?" Others with that same list ask that same question, but about different projects. It's the fact that we are free to combine conceptual purity, modifiability, stability, speed, and dozens of other engineering trade-offs in exactly the manner that we think is "right" that makes picking through Freshmeat like picking through a box of Dark Chocolates.

Oddly, the same rule applies. If you don't like a particular chocolate, don't eat it; don't whine about it; just pick a different one

I wish Mr. Stallman the fewest alpha particles and the best of luck in his noble pursuit.

Heh

[autopr0n]

When someone beats you by ten years it has nothing to do with software paradigms.

oi...

[BiOFH]

Nearly 20 years to produce something that's not practical as compared to everything that's already out. And it's not done yet. And now they're switching microkernels. Sorry... whatever, dude... no one but Stallman (and maybe Linus) could hold people in thrall over something like this for so long. It's PromiseWare. "Real soon... promise!"

OK, let's say I'll hold out... but if, when it finally arrives -- assuming it ever does, I have to partition my [future] 10 terabyte drive into 50 slices I will most decidely be more than 'annoyed'.

Come on, y'all... isn't pragmatism something to be sought after??? This project is a never-ending spiral of 'just wait'. What's next? "Oh, we have to switch microkernels again since the one we're using doesn't support CPU speeds greater than 999 MHz." ? (this theroretical example is merely meant to illustrate a point, I don't need a bunch of replies stating that it can do so -- that's not the point)

Where exactly is the "cool" part?

"In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like the Hurd people" - Linus

-----

Re:oi...

[matman]

I wasn't saying that pragmatism is useless. I was saying that spending a lot of time trying to do something neat is worth it. You, as a user, don't need to use it for it to be a worthwhile exercise, just as every person on earth doesn't need to use Linux for it to be a worthwhile exercise.

At least they're trying to do something neat.

Re:oi...

[Per Wigren]

Nearly 20 years to produce something that's not practical as compared to everything that's already out. And it's not done yet.

Don't forget that those 20 years include writing gcc, glibc, bash and hundreds of other essential tools...

Re:oi...

[BiOFH]

Flip remark:
I didn't see the bit where Stallman said "once we're done with these hundreds of other tools".

or

Serious remark:
I'm not disparaging RMS or GNU or (insert other) here. I'm talking about GNU/Hurd. The relevance of anything else has no withstanding in that regard.

If this weren't a FSF thing no one would be defending it. But by all appearances it's a terribly flawed project that will most likely never see the light of day or, if it does, will be a curiosity for geeks to spend a day or so playing with before casting it aside.

Stallman's done great things for computing. But I don't believe this is one of them. But I guess we'll see... in a few years.

Re:oi...

[swillden]

If this weren't a FSF thing no one would be defending it.

Bull. If this were being done by some research laboratories funded by IBM or AT&T people would be very interested to see what ideas they were trying out and what results they were getting.

The HURD may someday become useful, but even if it never does, it will still be interesting. No one else has tried to make an operating system this modular, that pushes the microkernel idea this hard.

Actually, the project's association with the FSF is the thing that makes it *most* worthy of criticism, because the FSF is supposedly about building software for people to use, share and enhance. Instead, at least for now, the HURD appears to be more of an open research project rather than what you'd expect the FSF to be doing.

Re:oi...

[Anonymous Coward]

No one else has tried to make an operating system this modular, that pushes the microkernel idea this hard.

And isn't it interesting that everyone else can manage to get their operating system to work?

The HURD is a great project; it plays with some experimental technology, explores some great new ideas, and if it ever really does get completed, has some outstanding ramifications... but until then, let's call it what it is ... an experimental research project.

Re:oi...

[jmischel]

Bull. If this were being done by some research laboratories funded by IBM or AT&T people would be very interested to see what ideas they were trying out and what results they were getting.

The primary point being that they would be getting results.

Re:oi...

[swillden]

let's call it what it is ... an experimental research project

That's *exactly* what I called it. Where were you?

Re:oi...

[swillden]

Never worked around researchers, have you?

Many projects don't pan out.

Yup.

[mindstrm]

Yup. Microkernels are better. That's why linux has been usable for 10 years, and hurd still isn't.

Urban Legend

[mindstrm]

That's a crock of shit.
If the compiler is solid, it most certainly can be as fast as hand coded assembly.

In many cases, it is FASTER than hand coded assembly; unless the person doing the assembly knows a great deal about the exact processor, cache, how to align instructions to execute faster, etctera....

Where is compiled defined to mean "slower than assembly?"

Yes, in some cases where the hardware is fairly new and nobody has written a compiler to optimize for the right tasks, hand coded assembly is better; it's still used quite a bit.

Re:Urban Legend

[Daniel]

That may be true with modern processors and compilers, but I don't believe it was true when compiled languages first became popular. My compiler/processor history may not be up to snuff, though..

Daniel

Re:Urban Legend

[mindstrm]

No; you are correct.

This is the typical flamewar between assembly nuts and C programmers.

The C programmers point out that the compiler is very good, and that nowadays there is no need for assembly.

The assembly programmers point out that a compiled language is always constrained by the rules of the compiler, and that a human can do better.

The reality is that it depends on the applications. If you have intimate knowledge about the hardware and processor, I mean really intimate, you can probably handcraft some assembly to do any given task faster than a C equivalent...
Or you can work on your compiler so that it creates the same excellent assembler for a given routine.

The argument is generally silly though; if you can do a loop faster in assembly, and you need the speed, you should do it.
I don't see ayone writing anything like mozilla in assembler.

UPDATE YOUR DAMN SIGS PAGE!!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's right. :P

/. sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you people ever get bored? Every single time RMS is mentioned there are 100 posts making "jokes" about HURD or GNU/Linux. Every time there is always a Duke Nukem Forever or Daikatana comparison. And what is even more amazing is every single time these comments get marked as funny and moderated up! Every single time! You guy must just laugh your butts off at classic movies like "Kung Pow"...

It's sad how even though we've been seeing these same jokes for years and years there are always some /.ers who haven't heard them and moderate them up as funny.

Really they should be modded down as redundent and silly.

Now a serious question:does HURD support pthreads yet?

Why look at that example?

[Inoshiro]

There are plenty of other microkernels in use very sucessfully. WinNT/2k/XP, Mac OS X, MkLinux, Minix, just to name a few!

Don't make such wide-ranging judgements based off of one case. You're counting your chickens before they are hatched.

Re:Why look at that example?

[TheSunborn]

I would not call WinNT/2K/XP micro kernels. They run the entire hd system AND gui system in kernel space. And MacOS X run the hd system in kernel space to, so
i am not sure that would count as a micro kernel either. I would say that the best example of a sucessfull microkernel is qnx neutrino(Qnx 6.2) (get.qnx.com if you want to test it)

Re:Why look at that example?

[zurab]

There are plenty of other microkernels in use very sucessfully. WinNT/2k/XP, Mac OS X, MkLinux, Minix, just to name a few!

Actually you prove what I am saying. Look at WinNT - originally designed as one of the most portable operating systems. Look at it now - they dropped the last Alpha support few years back, and went x86 only; Mac OS X runs only on Apple hardware, still to be proven how well and easily it can be ported outside of that. MkLinux and Minix are not practical solutions compared to monolithic Linux packages, not even close.

I am not claiming or arguing their success, however you define it, only pointing out Linus was right - the overdesign, performance issues are not worth their benefits. Someone still has to prove him wrong on this one, or threaten to fail the class, or whatever...

Re:Why look at that example?

[Anonymous Coward]

Balls NT came on about 6 different cpu types, when Microsoft saw which one was winning they dropped support for the rest, not a case of they could not do it, but no market.

Re:Why look at that example?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Look at WinNT - originally designed as one of the most portable operating systems. Look at it now - they dropped the last Alpha support few years back, and went x86 only;

And now they have IA64, x86-64 coming up. Besides it's not like Alpha and MIPS were dropped because they were a maintenance nightmare, they just didn't make any money. Linux can be ported to obscure and largely irrelevant platforms because bottom line is not an issue.

> Mac OS X runs only on Apple hardware

and on x86..

depend on what you mean by "right"

[g4dget]

The choice that Linus made was great for getting the project going: something that's easy to understand and easy to hack. But that doesn't mean it's good in the long run--the same could have been said for DOS. Microsoft makes such expedient choices constantly--that doesn't mean they are "right" in the long term.

The Linux kernel is running out of steam--the software development is becoming more and more unmanageable (see the BitKeeper debates), and drivers and new functionality often take years to appear in stable, up-to-date form in the kernel.

Those are the kinds of problems microkernels were supposed to address. I have no idea whether the GNU/Hurd does or does not address them, and even if it does, it is 15 year old technology. But I do know that Linux isn't addressing them right now, and that's a problem.

I suspect that what will actually happen is that in a couple of years, there will be a severely hacked Linux kernel fork that keeps driver and file system compatibility at the source level for a while but otherwise goes its own way.

Re:depend on what you mean by "right"

[Ian Bicking]

I have no idea whether the GNU/Hurd does or does not address them, and even if it does, it is 15 year old technology.

The Hurd isn't really a good microkernel -- it's not really a microkernel at all, but a bunch of services built ontop of a microkernel (Mach). Of course, the microkernel is essential to the actual operation, and the services have been written with a specific micokernel in mind... but it's not unreasonable to consider the Hurd running on a different (better, more advanced, faster) microkernel. People in the Hurd community have talked about just this, though of course no one has actually done the hard work of converting it.

But sadly, my impression of what the Hurd has shown, is that just because something is userspace doesn't mean its easy to debug. It seems like code accessibility -- even for original developers -- has not been very good. I think it's in the same way that threaded programming is much harder to debug... a complex set of interworking services is even worse.

And while microkernels allow a certain level of modularity, it really should be possible to achieve a great deal of modularity in a monolithic kernel as well -- just not in as safe a manner. I don't know that safety is the difficult part of Linux development. Well... I'm not entirely clear on what is the difficult part, I've never tried to program on the kernel. Probably an issue of factoring -- when refactoring needs to occur across module boundries (for whatever reason) it requires different developers to communicate and agree on things (which is where the overload is occuring). But that same problem will exist in a microkernel -- only the refactoring will be occuring between processes. That's not a big difference.

Maybe with enough thoughtfulness you can refactor everything in the Right Way, so that interfaces are entirely stable and development can occur without as much interdependence. That's not impossible -- there's a lot of experience from Linux and elsewhere to learn from. But I don't think that is related to monolithic or microkernel design.

Re:depend on what you mean by "right"

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux isn't hitting scalability problems because of its architecture. It's hitting walls because of the development process. There are *SO* many changes and additions being made to Linux these days, and ONE person insists on Oking every single change.

Is this really a surprise anyway?

[mosch]

What's the next big headline, 'Flying Cars That Turn Into Briefcases Not Available Yet'?

Re:The Hurd

[paladin_tom]

Bang on the money.

If I might add to what you've pointed out, RMS has explained that the motivation for continuing development of the Hurd is that it has the potential to be something much more powerful.

Which leads to what really bothers me about the Slashdot crowd's reaction to the Hurd. Lot's of people I know criticize Free/Open Source Software just rips stuff off, and doesn't innovate. Well, the Hurd is one of the most innovative Free Software projects around. These guys were talking about buiding a multi-server OS back at the beginning of the 90s.

Come on, once the Hurd is finished, GNU/Hurd will be years ahead of GNU/Linux, Windows NT, or Mac OSX. The only other OS I know of that's as theoretically-advanced as GNU/Hurd is QNX another multi-server.

This is cool stuff. Unfortunately, it seems that most people just want to complain, "Oh, does it have the drivers for XXXXX? No. Then it's useless." Grow up - the value of an operating system isn't defined by what hardware it runs on. That's much easier to change than the fundamental architecture of the system.

we need something new

[g4dget]

I share the lack of confidence of many people here that the GNU/Hurd will be able to deliver much of anything.

But I think we do need a new kernel: in my opinion, Linux kernel development is not keeping up with the needs and capabilities people are creating. Every single addition seems like a major battle. Drivers take forever to get into the official kernel distribution. And the most frequent problems with installations is missing hardware support and the need to recompile the kernel.

So, don't gloat over what happened with the GNU/Hurd. While Linux is still one of the best kernels in town, we really need more alternatives and more choice in architectures.

Re:we need something new

[platypus]

You confuse "not getting in linus' tree" with "not existant".
No vendor kernel (exception is debian) is using the pure linus tree, and there is a plethora of projects offering custom (patched) kernels. Add to that the possibility to roll your own kernel with drivers you download from the vendors (programmers) website, which in most cases you can even build as a module (read: completely unintrusive), which takes away one advantage of microkernels.

In 1985...

[ttfkam]

microkernels were the rage. HURD answered the call and started work. Now, almost 20 years later, MIT pulls the rug out with exokernels. So will we wait until 2020 to get a working model of that too?

God bless HURD for trying to advance the state of the art and improve upon the dated UNIX model, but sheesh! I wish HURD were ready for prime time. I really do. But a working model with caveats (Linux, OSX, *BSD) will always be better than a better model that's mostly theoretical in the real world.

That said, no one's paying the HURD developers. If it gos their nads, have at it. RMS needs to relax and realize that it is little more than a research experiment and not the second coming.

Re:In 1985...

[Nicolay77]

Mod the parent UP!!

The exokernels link is the only useful thing in this entire discussion. (At least for me)

Re:In 1985...

[Anonymous Coward]

An exokernel eliminates the notion that an operating system should provide abstractions on which applications are built. Instead, it concentrates solely on securely multiplexing the raw hardware: from basic hardware primitives, application-level libraries and servers can directly implement traditional operating system abstractions, specialized for appropriateness and speed.

Gosh. The above pretty well describes MSDOS.

Face it

[Anonymous Coward]

Face it. Stallman's pushing it because of his ego.

Uh Oh!

[Anonymous Coward]

What?! Noooo, not yet another Hurdle!

Where is Mach today? Here are two places.

[aussersterne]

Try:

MkLinux and
Mac OS X

Of course, both are somewhat more successful than the HURD...

How Stuff Works has more on this

[Anonymous Coward]

How Stuff Works has an article detailing the Linux and GNU relationship.

Re:GNU/Turd

[Anonymous Coward]

GNU/Turd is dying! The latest bombshell to hit the beleagured GNU/Turd project is that they had all the source code stored on an 8-inch floppy, which got demagnitized when RMS put it down too close to his 8-track tape machine. Now they have to start ALL OVER!

Mach/Hurd

[IvyMike]

Out of fairness, shouldn't this thing be called Mach/Hurd? (Or Mach/Gnu/Hurd, or Gnu/Mach/Hurd, or whatever....the point is the addition of "Mach") I suggest this for all the same reasons Stallman thinks it should be Gnu/Linux.

Re:Mach/Hurd

[paladin_tom]

When distinguishing the current Hurd with the planned port of the Hurd to L4, we often say Hurd/Mach, and Hurd/L4 (putting the higher layer before the lower layer, like with GNU/Linux).

do you actually use it?

[pitc]

I've got the hurd installed... and although I almost never use it, being subscribed to the mailing lists offers me insight into kernel development.

Linux was created years before I knew of its existance... and now that I'm interested in understanding how it works, it seems like I missed the boat...

Did you know?

[Anonymous Coward]

The FSF has no paid staff working on HURD, and uses the Linux kernel for all of its internal systems.

Re:The Hurd

[dalassa]

Isn't that what is said about all projects? It doesn't matter if you are theorectially advanced. Most people want concrete advancedness. People also want to be able to use the damn thing.

Open letter

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear HurdTeam,

It is with great pleasure that I received news about the latest developments on the Hurd front. I'm glad to know that you are planning for the future while building support for 2GB partitions. But really, does anybody need such insane amounts of space.

On a different note now: I know that given all the effort you have been putting in for the last 20 odd years, you are hard pressed for time. Hence I thought I'd bring this, to your attention. Please keep this in mind, during development. However much that I'd like to see the latest and greatest feature in Hurd, I'd still want to see my copy of GNU/Hurd before the prophecies come to pass (not that I believe the so-called visionary, but you know how it is...)

And please don't be disheartened by the comments you might read on Slashdot. They do not appreciate the hard work you folks are putting into the OS - last I hurd (hehehe) it was an OS; it still is, isn't it? Well, please keep up the good work.

Godspeed, fellas.

Yours sincerely,
HurdFan

Re:The Hurd

[paladin_tom]

People can use GNU/Linux. You don't use the kernel (as an end-user), you use your applications.

I think we've got a best-of-both worlds situation here: in the meantime, we've got a very good monolithic kernel (Linux), and we've got a nice multi-server in the works (Hurd), for when the time comes when monolithic kernels just can't cut it anymore.

And regarding your statement, "It doesn't matter if you are theorectially advanced.", that's a load of BS. If no one is innovating, technology stagnates. What we're seeing here is the price of innovation. And if Free/Open Source isn't willing to do this, then we'll deserve the criticism that we're just ripping off proprietary software.

Re:The Hurd

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Lot's of people I know criticize Free/Open Source Software just rips stuff off, and doesn't innovate.

(Hand goes up.) That would be me. Just, you know, credit where it's due.

These guys were talking about buiding a multi-server OS back at the beginning of the 90s.

The thing is, though, that they're still talking about it, and haven't been able to actually do anything with it. The world has gotten bored with Hurd. It's just not interesting any more, except possibly to academics who are fascinated by it for its abstract value alone. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but don't expect me to get all hot and bothered because the design is different in some exciting but arcane way.

This should've been FP

[DEBEDb]

Like, does anyone cares anymore? :))

Re:The Hurd

[paladin_tom]

The thing is, though, that they're still talking about it, and haven't been able to actually do anything with it.

Haven't been able to do anything with it? Buddy, I've got a GNU/Hurd box running at my university. It's not vapourware. And it's rapidly making progress.

don't expect me to get all hot and bothered because the design is different in some exciting but arcane way.

I don't call microkernel architecture "arcane." I'm not satisfied with the long-term potential of monolithic kernels, hence I support the Hurd.

Actually, IBM is getting all hot and bothered by this stuff. They're financing the development of SawMill, a multi-server version of Linux running on top of the L4 microkernel. This stuff is the future.

Not IBM, I think...

[Anonymous Coward]

The name ``International Business Machines'' wasn't used until 1924.

The company didn't exist in 1908; it was founded in 1911 as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company.

Re:Not IBM, I think...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, I think you broke your sense of humor. You better get to a doctor!

Debian GNU/Hurd?

[grytpype]

Isn't there a Debian arch for Hurd? How can they offer a complete distro like Debian on Hurd if Hurd is so incomplete?

Re:The Hurd

[Inthewire]

once the Hurd is finished...

...there will be men on Mars growing vegetables.

You don't need a big hard drive to install Debian

[MichaelCrawford]

My understanding is that Hurd works reasonably well for the hardware it's designed for. And you don't need that big a hard drive to install Debian. I have the PowerPC port of Debian on my Macintosh, and everything including /home is on a single 2 GB hard drive. The largest partition is 834 MB, well under Hurd's limit if I were to install Hurd instead.

I think everyone here is being pretty unfair to Hurd and RMS's efforts. Hurd can easily do all kinds of stuff you'll never get Linux to be able to do, like allow unpriviliged users to mount filesystems in their home directories without causing problems for security, allowing ordinary users to hack the kernel without breaking security and so on.

All of this has been a major advancement in computer science, and they simply haven't needed things like large partitions that of course would be needed for widespread acceptance. I simply don't see it as a big deal that they've taken so long to add the features needed for an end-user, because they had to take a long time to write the architectural underpinnings that are miles beyond Linux.

You don't understand Mr.Stallman's reasons at all.

[Inoshiro]

You're totally misinterpretting Mr. Stallman's beliefs about naming.

The free operating environment he has been trying to create for 20 years is called GNU. This encompases a kernel, userland, system libraries, compilers, etc. It's a whole, big lot of work. They started out with the editors, a C library, and a compiler so they could write the rest, and they went very far. GNU userlands started to supplant the traditional ones on most UNIX machines because GNU applications were full featured and matured quickly (try the BSD userland sometime, you'll start to notice missing options quickly), and because they were open and free.

But their kernel, the Hurd, lagged in development. Linus took the amazing GNU userland and added his Linux kernel. The GNU/Linux system was born, a fusion of the GNU userland and the Linux kernel. Mr. Stallman believes than Linus deserves much credit for bringing a free kernel into the world (remember, it was released when BSD was dealing with much legal ramblings), and that's why it's listed as a part of the name (and not just included in the name "GNU").

A modular layer deep in the kernel which can be swapped at will is not really relevant to it. You could ask why XFree86 is not in the name of GNU/Linux, and you'll be told it's because only the GNU and Linux parts were designed towards the goal of a free system. XFree86 is just a reference version of X11R6 which runs on x86 (and other) hardware. The same can be said of Mach, it's just a reference implementation of some software.

GNU is the only operating environment designed to be free as in freedom from the very start, which is why Mr. Stallman asks that you properly credit the GNU contributors for their many man-centuries of effort.

Oh, of course.

[Inoshiro]

You're retarded because you don't want to break 10 trillion applications and reset your current "I have a browser, I have a word processer," etc progress to a state of nothingness.

Re:Oh, of course.

[Anonymous Coward]

Very few apps these days are written for X. They're written with toolkits like GTK+ and Qt which are fairly abstract and platform agnostic. Port those toolkits to the new windowing system, and tada, the new apps will run there.

Re:Oh, of course.

[Anonymous Coward]

What bullshit. X, the protocol, is great. XFree86, the implementation, is pure shit. XFree86's codebase is larger and older than the linux kernel codebase. I wouldn't be surprised to hear it's larger than all the basic GNU tools combined (binutils, gcc, fileutils, gmake, etc)

The point is, XF86 is what sucks, not the underlying protocol. X is a Good Thing, and the only possible replacement is Berlin Fresco

Re:Oh, of course.

[Anonymous Coward]

I never said X the protocol or XFree86 the implementation were good or bad. I merely pointed out that most apps wouldn't need porting to a new window system, just the toolkits.

X is a Good Thing, and the only possible replacement is Berlin Fresco
Only probable replacement you mean?

Re:Oh, of course.

[Anonymous Coward]

X the protocol ain't that great either. Compare it to something like Citrix ISA -- X is completely left in the dust in terms of bandwidth usage and security. Try using X over a 56K or 128K link - bleck.

I agree that 99% of the "X Sucks" crowd are linux kiddies that have only used XFree86, which is terrible.

in other news. . .

[Farley Mullet]

GNU/Hurd Delayed! In related news, sun rises in east!

You're rehashing questions already answered.

[Inoshiro]

Your trolling questions are answered in very nice detail here.

In a nutshell:
The free operating environment he has been trying to create for 20 years is called GNU. This encompases a kernel, userland, system libraries, compilers, etc. It's a whole, big lot of work. They started out with the editors, a C library, and a compiler so they could write the rest, and they went very far. GNU userlands started to supplant the traditional ones on most UNIX machines because GNU applications were full featured and matured quickly (try the BSD userland sometime, you'll start to notice missing options quickly), and because they were open and free.

But their kernel, the Hurd, lagged in development. Linus took the amazing GNU userland and added his Linux kernel. The GNU/Linux system was born, a fusion of the GNU userland and the Linux kernel. Mr. Stallman believes than Linus deserves much credit for bringing a free kernel into the world (remember, it was released when BSD was dealing with much legal ramblings), and that's why it's listed as a part of the name (and not just included in the name "GNU").

As to why it's not including other names, you could ask why XFree86 is not in the name of GNU/Linux, and you'll be told it's because only the GNU and Linux parts were designed towards the goal of a free system. XFree86 is just a reference implementation of X11R6 which runs on x86 (and other) hardware.

I would like to see a GNU/BSD system myself, because the Linux kernel can be buggy, and verification that the bug is in the kernel is a lot less hard if I use one system which can boot a few different kernels.

Re:You're rehashing questions already answered.

[Anonymous Coward]

An inpection of the "GNU/Linux" question on Gnu.org? Wow, thats bound to be impartial and unbiased! Fucktard.

Cool stuff?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a ripped-off clone of the failed Mach kernel. How is that cool? And given HURD's history, by the time it's released, it'll seem about as advanced as ROM-Basic seems now.

Re:Cool stuff?

[paladin_tom]

No, it's built on the Mach kernel.

Re:The Hurd

[ealar dlanvuli]

Come on, once the Hurd is finished, GNU/Hurd will be years ahead of GNU/Linux, Windows NT, or Mac OSX

And all of those operating systems will be years ahead of themselves....

If you can't say something nice...

[Ageless]

[this space intentionally left blank]

Re:If you can't say something nice...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a lot of people saying nothing at all.

Re:If you can't say something nice...

[Anonymous Coward]

...then fuck off!(?)

screenshots?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone have any pointers to HURD screenshots? I could have sworn there were some on the HURD documentation page a while back, but they don't seem to be there any more. I tried google, but couldn't find anything...

Anybody?

Re:screenshots?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll trade you my hurd screenshots for your kernel32.dll screenshots.

Linux? an OS?

[The_Dougster]

I'm sorry, but a kernel is not an OS. The Linux kernel, while it is an awesome piece of work, it still is nowhere even close to being an operating system. Debian is an OS. Whether it boots via the Linux kernel, FreeBSD, or Hurd, it is still Debian and it is the OS.

Yes, the kernel is very important, but it is not the OS. GNU is the OS that makes it all happen. Give RMS his credit, because he convinced a lot of people to work on the everyday utilities which are the backbone of an operating system. Not everybody can be a Linus, but anyone can help port a simple little utility program. Thats what RMS did and thats why GNU is an OS but Linux is not.

Re:Linux? an OS?

[Twirlip of the Mists]

I'm sorry, but a kernel is not an OS.

This is not at issue. The trademark "Linux" describes "computer operating system software to facilitate computer use and operation." Whether Linus Torvalds's kernel constitutes a computer operating system or not is irrelevant. The question is whether the name "Linux" refers to the entire operating system or just the kernel, and the answer is clearly the former.

Give RMS his credit

This isn't about credit. This is about infringement. Torvalds has the exclusive right to determine how the name "Linux," when describing computer operating system software, is applied. That's what having a registered trademark means. He has indicated that while he has no objection to the term "GNU/Linux" to describe one particular release of the Linux operating system-- be it the FSF's, or Debian's, or the one released by Handsome Pete who dances for nickels-- he does object to the FSF's use of the name "GNU/Linux" to describe all releases of the Linux operating system. Torvalds's instructions are to call the Linux operating system "just plain 'Linux,'" so that's what people must do.

Either that, or stop calling it any derivative of "Linux" altogether. Call it "GNUnux," or what have you.

Re:Linux? an OS?

[dvdeug]

Torvalds's instructions are to call the Linux operating system "just plain 'Linux,'" so that's what people must do.

Assuming, of course, that you're someone who thinks that the Linux trademark matters. If you're someone like Linus Torvalds, and realize that the trademark is a legally formality that only exists because of lawyers and idiots, and you aren't one of them, then you can do what ever you find reasonable with the word Linux.

Re:Linux? an OS?

[Twirlip of the Mists]

That's a mighty strong statement to be putting in somebody else's mouth. Might want to back off of that position just a tad before you start to look like an idiot.

Trademarks are not just "legal formalities that only exists because of lawyers and idiots". Whether any given person believes that they are or not is irrelevant. Trademarks, and the rules governing them, are an important part of intellectual property law. Of course, I know that the most vocal Slashdotters will assert that all intellectual property law is baseless and corrupt, but those people simply don't know what they're talking about, so I won't even bother responding to such arguments.

If you want to violate the laws governing the use of trademarks, that's fine by me. But don't argue that they don't apply. If you want to ignore Torvalds's own explicit instructions, that's fine too, but don't argue that he doesn't care whether you do.

Re:Linux? an OS?

[dvdeug]

Trademarks are not just "legal formalities that only exists because of lawyers and idiots".

I never said they were. I said the Linux trademark is.

all intellectual property law is baseless and corrupt, but those people simply don't know what they're talking about

You're amazingly arrogant, aren't you? It seems like anyone who holds an opinion you disagree with are idiots and fools.

If you want to ignore Torvalds's own explicit instructions, that's fine too, but don't argue that he doesn't care whether you do.

I will so argue, if I so believe my argument is correct. My opinion is that you put legal significance to a causal statement made by some one who had no intent of it having legal significance. Again, your arrogance is overwhelming to presume to tell others what arguments to make and not to make.

Re:Linux? an OS?

[Anonymous Coward]

He's intellitrolling you. He's just like any other troll except he's smart about keeping his karma.

Re:You don't understand Mr.Stallman's reasons at a

[Arandir]

It's taken me a few years to understand RMS' perspective on the issue. But just because I can understand it does not make it right.

From his viewpoint, linux was merely dropped into The GNU System. But from the perspective of the rest of the world, Linus made an OS and a the Linux distributions added a bunch of userland stuff from different projects, GNU being a major supplier.

To use an analogy, Linus built an internal combustion engine, then his friends when to the local AutoParts and built a car. The name of the completed vehicle is not AutoParts/Linux.

If you take a look from any perspective but Mr. Stallman's, a heck of a lot of GNU was adjusted to fit the Linux kernel. Linux was not adjusted to fit GNU. Just browse through the glibc ChangeLog for proof.

Re:The Hurd

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, well, since OS/2 NT was designed in 1987 it has had a microkernel architecture! Mac OS X uses the XNU kernel which is essentially the Mach microkernel and BSD services. Of course, these are systems used in production today, so they must not have all that "fundamental architecture" stuff. Hah!

Re:You don't understand Mr.Stallman's reasons at a

[IvyMike]

You're totally misinterpretting Mr. Stallman's beliefs about naming.

Probably.

A modular layer deep in the kernel which can be swapped at will is not really relevant to it.

"Swapped at will?" Not to put to fine a point on it, but this is in an article about the Hurd being delayed an indeterminate amount of time due to just such a swap.

You could ask why XFree86 is not in the name of GNU/Linux, and you'll be told it's because only the GNU and Linux parts were designed towards the goal of a free system.

1) I really don't believe those were the only parts developed towards the goal of a free system, so I suspect I must be misinterpreting your point, and 2) I would suspect I would really be told that you can have a perfectly reasonable Gnu/Linux system without XFree86. The GNU/Linux FAQ seems to imply it's really a matter of giving credit for effort, and not a matter of the philospohical goals.

GNU is the only operating environment designed to be free as in freedom from the very start, which is why Mr. Stallman asks that you properly credit the GNU contributors for their many man-centuries of effort.

Doesn't follow. Mach sure seems like it's free (and thus Hurd can use it), and it seems necessary to enabling the Hurd to exist. I still don't see why the efforts of the developers deserve any less credit for their man-years of effort towards making Hurd possible.

I'm not trying to be arbitrary here; I don't know all the issues, and I didn't know about the planned port to a different microkernel, but it seems like the current Hurd owes a lot of credit to the existence of Mach, in a way simliar to the way Linux-based OSes owes a huge amount of credit to the existence of GNU.

None of you so called geeks get it.

[slashdot_commentator]

HURD is not the operating system choice of "hackers" or slashdotters. Hackers want to run computer applications (reliably and speedily). That is not what HURD is about. Its the utopian platform for computer science geeks; people who want to go beyond the current paradigm of UNIX, classic sequential computing, etc. . By abstracting the ukernel to a couple of critical operations (time slicing, memory allocation, and IPC), and moving every other operation to user mode, you have a tool that can be used to implement new concepts in computer operating systems.

Its not an alternative to Linux. Its an orange to Linux's apple. It will suck as an alternative to Linux. It will run slower than Linux (especially if they stick with Mach). It will not run more stablely than Linux (given its increased complexity). It may be a better platform for multiple CPU configurations, be we won't know that for sure until its ukernel design is complete, and an implementation of HURD actually proves it to be faster. Very few people will want to port useful packages to HURD; they'll go to Linux for reliability and performance. HURD's purpose is not a platform to run applications. Its a platform for computer science research.

That is the reason why I do not wish death on HURD and rejoice when there is good news for it. It does not really compete with Linux for mindshare. If it proves to be a superior platform for MP processing, only then will it have a mundane use.

I have massive contempt for its project management. Its currently looking like the OS that will never get released. And it does not deserve a serious look until it gets a quality ukernel, like L4 (which itself is unfinished). MACH will not cut it, or its UKS(?) version.

Re:None of you so called geeks get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

It should run more stably than linux, since a device driver shouldn't crash the OS as a whole, unlike on linux and versions of NT > 3.5

Re:None of you so called geeks get it.

[slashdot_commentator]

And who runs device drivers that crash the OS??? How many drivers in the stable version of Linux that crash the operating system have been kept??? Its a theoretical selling point. Right now, current distributions of HURD cannot match the uptime of Linux.

Re:None of you so called geeks get it.

[dlakelan]

You didn't pay attention at all....

The point is that people who have good ideas can EXPERIMENT with NEW drivers without crashing the OS.

How many times do you think Alan Cox or Linus Torvalds has experienced a kernel panic???

They DO run drivers that crash the kernel.

It's not about selling to corporate america, it's about letting developers develop OS level tools without lossage.

That being said, HURD still doesn't have user level drivers. They rolled Linux drivers into Mach. I don't know whether the switch to OSKit Mach will help, but this is its biggest problem.

Re:None of you so called geeks get it.

[Christopher Doopov]

Its not an alternative to Linux. Its an orange to Linux's apple. It will suck as an alternative to Linux. (...) Very few people will want to port useful packages to HURD; (...) HURD's purpose is not a platform to run applications.

Have you ever heard about Debian GNU/Hurd? Are the four (yes, 4) full CDs *today* just "few people [porting] useful packages" to you?! Truely amazing troll -- and modded as Score:5, Insightful -- my congratulations, you have successfully fooled the Slashdot moderators. Now please don't spread this lies, because this crap is nothing more than just lies. Maybe next time before you post something like this download Debian GNU/Hurd ISOs, burn them, install the system, count how many packages there are, and then post your opinion about it.

Re:None of you so called geeks get it.

[slashdot_commentator]

Have you ever heard about Debian GNU/Hurd [debian.org]? [...] Maybe next time before you post something like this download Debian GNU/Hurd ISOs, burn them, install the system, count how many packages there are, and then post your opinion about it.

Yes, I did. I installed it when Debian first made its distribution public last year. I threw it out shortly after the first crash. I did not bother to count the number of packages, and it won't change the fact that xBSD will get more package support than HURD. Perhaps you could support your argument by providing a link to where those HURD application packages can be obtained. (Its not at the links you provided.)

Only a clueless academic regurgitator such as yourself will think that when HURD gets a couple MORE of years of development under its belt, that it will run more quickly than the linux kernel. After all, expending more CPU time creating superfluous interprocess communication somehow makes kernels more efficient. Or HURD will run more stably with all those system and application threads competing with each other to get work done. Oh, people will be running on top of each other to run a slower, buggier OS. And people love to spend their free time developing for obscure platforms like xBSD, QNX, and BeOS

Look, maybe in your world RMS is God, and believe everyone should run their lives by his dogma. But if I see the emperor is naked, I'm going to call him on it. You take one of my statements, misconstrue it, and conclude everything I say is a lie. But you and your smelly, unwashed zealots missed the whole point of my exposition.

No commercial entity is going to run their webservers or databases on HURD in this decade (if ever). They will chose a commmercial product or chose the OS with the faster, more stable kernel (it will not be HURD). The same goes for people who use their computers to websurf, write documents, and handle email. These are applications used by the "real world".

The value of HURD is not as a viable alternative to Linux. HURD as valdidation of RMS communist theories is only of value to RMS. HURD will not experience widespread adoption once it can create a disk partition greater than 1 GB. HURD has tremendous potential as a platform which can construct new computer paradigms we cannot implement with our current OSs. But it needs to work, and it needs to work efficiently enough for people to discount the performance hit due to its design. Porting web servers, other popular applications, or obscure device drivers to a platform that currently does not meet minimal requirements in performance and stability is a freaking waste of time. Judging HURD as valueless because it is not a viable Linux alternative is equally clueless.

Re:None of you so called geeks get it.

[Christopher Doopov]

Yes, I did. I installed it when Debian first made its distribution public last year. I threw it out shortly after the first crash.

Such a large project as an operating system, which "is not officially released yet, and won't be for some time" (a quote from Debian GNU/Hurd website, I linked to in my post) is not totally useless if it ever crashes, especially if it's soon after the first public release. Have you tried Linux 0.2 lately? Let me quote a little bit more from the website:

The Hurd is under active development, but does not provide the performance and stability you would expect from a production system. Also, only about every second Debian package has been ported to the GNU/Hurd. There is a lot of work to do before we can make a release.

Until then, you can participate in the development if you want. Depending on your experience and time commitment, you can help us in many different ways. For example, we need experienced C hackers to develop and implement new features and to fix bugs and debug the system. If you are not very experienced in C programming, you can still help: Either by testing the existing systems and reporting bugs, or by trying to compile some unported software you have experience with. Also writing documentation is important, or maintaining the web pages.

Well, it doesn't look as a production-ready, bug-free system to me, and it's a year after you have tried it, as you said. Seriously, did you expect a rock solid mature operating system from such a description?

Only a clueless academic regurgitator such as yourself will think that when HURD gets a couple MORE of years of development under its belt, that it will run more quickly than the linux kernel.

Please pardon me if I take offence to your insults. I'm a little disgusted when people start to use terms like "clueless academic regurgitator such as yourself" to desperately defend their invalid arguments. I have NOT said that Hurd would ever run more quickly than Linux, I have really no idea why have you made it up. Let me get this straight: The Hurd will NOT run faster than Linux. (I'm not affraid to agree with you, even after you called me a "clueless academic regurgitator" -- I try to not take your insults personally, for the sake of our argument. Please try to understand, if it is sometimes hard to me, I quickly get disgusted when people, sometimes much younger people, use insulting language.) It's actually very simple: the more you throw into the kernel space, the faster OS you have. This is why Linux is faster than Hurd, and this is also why Windows has faster graphics than Linux. But also, the more you have in kernel space, the larger portion of your OS has to be made secure, because every bug can potentially crash or exploit the system.

Or HURD will run more stably with all those system and application threads competing with each other to get work done. Oh, people will be running on top of each other to run a slower, buggier OS.

And here you are wrong. Those new layers of abstraction, the user-space Hurd servers processes, making the kernel-space as small as possible, et cetera -- it's all being done to make it more stable and secure, with cleaner design, even if it is slower than the more monolithic kernel design (and here by monolithic I mean the whole kernel code running as a privileged kernel-space code with no protection between modules -- see kernel-level rootkits for example why this may be dangerous -- not just the kernel with one binary file). It may be slower, but not buggier. The difference between Hurd and Linux (and Linux and Windows, for that matter), is quite similar to the difference between Lisp and C (or C and Assembly), i.e. it can be slower, but this is the price you pay for potentially much more stable design in the long run. This is why you should consider the differences in Hurd and Linux design as a different direction of speed-stability trade-off. Of course Linux 2.2 or 2.4 (or even 2.5) is more stable now than Hurd 0.2 which shouldn't be surprising at all.

And people love to spend their free time developing for obscure platforms like xBSD, QNX, and BeOS

If you don't want to develop for any platform you don't like, you just don't have to, I thought it should be obvious. But what I would suggest you is learning how to write portable code. Remember that Hurd is being developed with respect to such standards as ISO, ANSI, POSIX, BSD, Single Unix, SVID, X/Open (and maybe others which I don't remember about now). GNU people did a great job at providing tools which help writing portable code (GCC, GNU Make, GNU Automake, GNU Configure, etc.), but there are also many other tools as well.

Look, maybe in your world RMS is God, and believe everyone should run their lives by his dogma. (...) But you and your smelly, unwashed zealots missed the whole point of my exposition.

I'm sorry, but I affraid I will not be able to continue this discussion, unless you try controlling yourself. I know this is Slashdot, but please let us at least try to not be so childish.

No commercial entity is going to run their webservers or databases on HURD in this decade (if ever). They will chose a commmercial product or chose the OS with the faster, more stable kernel (it will not be HURD).

Of course it will not be Hurd 0.2, like it was not Linux 0.2. But please remeber that "the faster" and "the more stable" don't have to be the same kernel. I would bet that in the long run Linux will be faster, and Hurd will be more stable.

The same goes for people who use their computers to websurf, write documents, and handle email. These are applications used by the "real world".

You are right that people (by which I mean most of people) don't use Hurd, Linux (and GNU at all), BSD, etc. -- they use Windows for that. But should the conclusion be that therefore Windows design is superior to Hurd? I don't think so. After all, more people eat at Mac Donald's than any other restaurant, which doesn't mean it's because they serve the most extraordinary dishes.

The value of HURD is not as a viable alternative to Linux. HURD as valdidation of RMS communist theories is only of value to RMS.

I'm sorry, but this time you have gone too far. If your motivation for this argument is insulting Mr. Richard Stallman (or any one else for that matter, even people who I personally don't agree with), then I can no longer stay patient. I can handle personal insults in my direction, but insulting other people is definitely not in my nature.

Why nor Emacs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not ditch the hurd kernel and just slap emacs on top of the micro kernel?
I mean, the only thing missing in emacs from an OS POV is the kitchen sink (wasn't that being worked on?)and perhaps a graphics driver.

Oh come on

[Anonymous Coward]

Can anyone please mod this kid down ? Or can anyone start a site like "Come here to whine continuously about the GNU/Linux name issue"... You're making a way bigger deal of it than RMS ever did..

Well then..

[Anonymous Coward]

Well then use it. I've been playing around with GNU/Hurd, and I haven't seen the system crash once, although some programs obviously still needed work.

2GB!!

[ThatComputerGuy]

Wow, with the demise of these space limitations, RMS can now fully install and use his favorite text-editor-cum-OS on a Hurd system! It must be awful for him currently, having to make do without such essentials as M-x tetris and all...

Could the Linux kernel be used.

[Anonymous Coward]

How about stripping down the Linux kernel to be more of a micro-kernel. Then The Turd would have a lot better driver and FS support. I understand this purist it MUST be a microkernel since they've been bitching about it so long, they have to do it now. However, howabout making some allowance so, oh, they can get done in 30 years maybe.

Re:Could the Linux kernel be used.

[Espen Skoglund]

This has been tried (albeit not using Linux). It's called Mach, and is by many people considered somewhat of a failure.

Either GNU/Hurd team are insane or you are a troll

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd be prepared to believe either.

OpenBEOS

[Abnormal Coward]

At this rate, the OpenBEOS team will have the entire OS rewritten before the hurd kenel gets to version 1.0 :).

Re:The Hurd

[awol]

Lot's of people I know criticize Free/Open Source Software just rips stuff off, and doesn't innovate

It is an interesting critcism and it misses the critical point about Free Software. By it's disposition towards "zealots" funded by their own resources (be it spare time, hobby time, independent wealth or roving mandate) it has the oppirtunity to develop ideas and projects that are not otherwise economically viable.

Look at it this way, the net social utility of the participants in the project is increased by their "enjoyment" of working on the project, the net social utility of society is increased by the output of their project (regardless of its term) and the cost to society in terms of allocating capital to projects that may not succeed is reduced. It is just a totally winning situation. This multiplier effect to the economic utility makes this kind of approach to software development (and content creation since the same model applies to the content on the net) a _truly_ wonderful thing and it may just save our world.

Mach-less?

[geoff lane]

There comes a time when you have to cut your losses. HURD is a project that has gone seriously wrong. Mach development ENDED in 1994 (http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/project/ma ch/public/www/status.html)

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with microkernels or message passing (assuming you use zero-copy mechanisms and avoid contect switches) and they do provide excellent discipline to the design process.

Good Architecture, Bad Community

[multiview]

I really love Hurd if you take hurd just as the bunch of source files, but I can't stand hurd if you view the Hurd project as a developer community. Most of these guys waste their time with flaming you because you are dare to try booting GNU/Hurd within proprietary software (VMWare in that case).

Instead of giving you straight answer ignoring the sematical inaccuracies in a newbies questions, they spend the largest part of the discussion on explaining things you already know.

I tried to join the hurd project serveral times, but before I've been able to contribute, I've been turn of by the ignorance and fanaticism of that community, therefor..

Hurd will fail, because the Hurd community fails to attract people.

Re:The Hurd

[photon317]

Actually microkernels with multiple servers and virtually everything in userspace are at this point a pretty old concept. Most of the CS world already "been there, done that, moved on". I don't want it to sound like this reference is the only motivation for my opinion, but in any case a good read is the old tannenbaum vs torvalds debate on microkernels that's archived on kernel.org, from way back in the first days of linux. The point is that a lot of the supposed gains of a microkernel architecture can also be accomplished in a monolithic kernel with proper code layout and interfacing, since they're really more semantic than anything. You're paying a rather large runtime penalty in performance and complexity for something that can be mostly dealt with at coding/compile/link or even insmod time.

GPL 3

[dolmen.fr]

The FSF is also modifying the GNU General Public License (GPL), though the fundamental principles will remain unchanged, according to Stallman.
"We have looked at, for example, adding a clause that explicitly states that you give a patent license when you redistribute the software," Stallman added.


This will hopefully remove some incompatibilityies between the GPL and other free licenses such as the IBM Public License 1.0 used for Eclipse.

It's O.K

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently, neither do the HURD developers!

Would that not be L5 then?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or is it L4.1? Apart from being a microkernel L4 is also an interface specification, and the way you describe it it seems the interface would be changing (otherwise there would be little need to wait).

Innovations Vs Practical system

[Anonymous Coward]

The arguments on both sides seem to revolve around:
1. This is good innovative stuff!!!
2. Linux is already out and mature there so why bother.

Both sides have good points, however they are on opposite sides of the Market/Technology continuum.
Back around the time that Unix was gaining 'market' acceptance, there were quite a few >Really nicemay have an advantage, is that while it supports the feature set of Unix, and therefore keeps the Unix compatibility people happy, it can be extended modularly, because it is not architecturally limited.
Where Hurd may lose, is that there are already established ways to do Unix on commodity systems. And if you think that's not an important factor, ask yourself why there are so many Microsoft systems on desktops.

The truth is probably in the middle. There will be a niche 'market' for Hurd. Whether it's a big or small niche depend on what it has to offer, the pain level of getting what it has to offer, and whether or not the sort of development community build up to support it the way it did for Linux.

Re:Innovations Vs Practical system

[adb]

I don't think the Hurd can ever catch up as a Unix system. The interesting things about it have to do with how it's not like a modern Unix: any user can completely change how the OS works for himself or any other user who cooperates.

Re:Innovations Vs Practical system

[Anonymous Coward]

As if writing code for LINUX isn't hell enough with the infinite user/distro configuration issues...

Re:Innovations Vs Practical system

[adb]

Shrug. It's no harder than writing for all the other different flavors of Unix, and a hell of a lot easier than dealing with Windows or (shudder) pre-X MacOS. (Takes off "been there, done that" hat.)

Re:The Hurd

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't been able to do anything with it? Buddy, I've got a GNU/Hurd box running at my university. It's not vapourware. And it's rapidly making progress.

So what? Do you have any idea how many Operating Systems there are out there, many of them written by a single person, many of them writen in less time than HURD, that you can load and run on your PC?

The point you seem to be missing it that although you might be able to run HURD right here, right now, it is only one in a sea of thousands. The only interesting thing about HURD is that RMS is the lead developer!

Re:The Hurd

[MentlFlos]

I live in a giant bucket

but how is your anus?

NOTE TO MODERATORS:
This is not a troll, it is a reply to his sig which is a quote from the short (and twisted) movie "Rejected". I suggest you watch it. You will watch it so much you will believe that YOU too are a bananna and your spoon, however much you like it, is too big.

Oh yeah, I love yer sig :)

GNU/Hurd

[Scholasticus]

This delay is not good news (except insofar as it improves Hurd in the end). I would sincerely like to see the Hurd kernel get beyond development-stage code, since more competition, variety, and choice in the Free Software/OSS world would be a good thing. Right now there's really only one workable 'GNU' system, and that's GNU/Linux. To me it seems likely that another kernel for use in a GNU operating system would give us users more choice.

Linux is for overweight, hairy, asocial gearheads.
FreeBSD is also for overweight, hairy, asocial gearheads.

Could someone explain something to me?

[10Ghz]

HURD is a microkernel right? Then what is Mach microkernel? People say that HURD uses the Mach Mircokernel, but isn't HURD kernel in itself? What is the relation between HURD and Mach (and the other microkernels out there)?

Re:Could someone explain something to me?

[perplex79]

"The Hurd is a set of servers running on top of the GNU Mach microkernel."

It should be called...

[Anonymous Coward]

GNU/TICKTURD.

Take a page from MS...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're supposed to ship it as is. When users complain about only 1-2GB partitions, call it a feature and make them wait for HurdXP.

Re:Take a page from MS...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry that's the O.S. "Release early/Release Often" model. Win2k was delayed 2.5 years to make sure that it rocked on release. Course they had 5k developers working on it unlike Hurd which has like this guy, you know?

OT: "Excellence In The CFL"

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post reminded me of the time the Baltimore Stallions won the Grey Cup, and the original Cleveland Browns made their move to Baltimore later that year.

City of Baltimore: Congratulations on winning the CFL championship. Now get out of town!

Glad you noticed!!!

[3seas]

How many commenting would have never noticed any delay had they not read it here?

Regardless of any negativity being expressed here towards the efforts of the Hurd Developers or the goal, this is a project that needs to be done.

I have no doubt that had Linux not come along, there would have been more man power and efforts put into the Hurd these past years.

Of course Linux was a distraction for many, yet it was also NOT a distructive distraction. Alot of GNU and GPL software has been developed and put into use. Enough So that, as we all know, MS has taken notice and has even launched a competitive campagin against not just Open Sourse, Linux and GNU, but with a focus on the GPL.

What software there has been made to run on Linux, can and probably already has been ported to run on the Hurd....(except for a few packages that just don't make sence to port as they deal with monolithic kernel issuse that don't exist in the Hurd). The count of software packages ported is in the thousands.

Even the drivers written for Linux are usable on the Hurd.

All of that porting and compatability was/is alot of work for which the Hurd Development team has done. So there has been energies going into alot more than just the hurd core.

Perhaps the really good part of all this is that MS probably doesn't have a clue as to what to expect of developer who will develop applications for the Hurd, to take advantage of the hurd. And it should be understood that the hurd opens the door up a lot more for development innovations.

So what will you have when the Hurd is officially publicly released... production version...??

You will have what appears to be no or very little different than using Linux. On the surface. But under the hood.... It's a more versatile, stable and in sum of.... overall more powerful in ability to bring about advancements.

There are quite a few other OS's being developed today, under the open source idea. And there is nothing about the Hurd that says you cannot attach a personal choice smart user space interface OS to the Hurd. Integrating it to benefit from the security of the Hurd, the GNU number crunching software already written, etc... thru the IPC of the Hurd....

I like the idea of plugging my personal Smart Interface OS into a hurd system for such benefits. A 3" CD, a smart card, or some yet to be developed re-writable device I can take with me.

Re:Glad you noticed!!!

[iggymanz]

I have no doubt that had Linux not come along, there would have been more man power and efforts put into the Hurd these past years.

Really, this is getting to be too much.....after over a decade of floundering around, the FSF has yet to produce anything even remotely useful as a production operating system kernel. Linus and the people who worked on Linux did that in 7 - 8 years.

It's great what the FSF has done, to give the world a compiler to produce free software, and the tools and utilities to make Linux and other OS's a finished OS. And even the Hurd as a computer science experimental kernel to play with new ideas.

But it is ridiculous to say that Linux has distracted from the Hurd effort....the Hurd simply is not about designing a useful kernel.....it is a playground for ideas in OS architecture, and it will be many more years of flounder/play/redesign before it is known what ideas in there will even be useful for a production kernel,

Re:Glad you noticed!!!

[dlakelan]

Linux did in 7-8 years what the original Unix system had already done for 15 years before them.

Linux is a good kernel, but it is NOT a new way to design an operating system. HURD is at least somewhat experimental. Since they don't have a rock solid proven technique to copy, it takes them longer.

The HURD people DO have problems, not the least of which is that they're solving a problem people didn't know they had.

The HURD is a good idea, but in my opinion falls short because it doesn't have user land drivers.

Lets face it, drivers are the problem, and the solution is to let user-land programmers work on them, and provide methods for speedy shared memory to make them efficient. HURD still doesn't solve this problem.

But you have to give them credit for the fact that they're creating a system with a completely different underlying methodology than monolithic kernels.

RMS

[thoolihan]

I'm sure I will get flamed on /. for this one, but since 98% of the comments are along the lines of "down with RMS", I have to say this.

At some point you have to decide if you are going to go along with the pithy flames or do real research. It's not popular, but it reveals the truth. If not, go to the next comment, this isn't for you.

From a proctical standpoint, I understand the "Linux" side of the argument. However, people make that argument with statemnt like... "Don't do drugs, you'll end up like the Hurd peopl" - LT. RMS makes his argument respectfully on the GNU website and encourages people to use GNU/Linux. On the GNU site, he says the easiest and best way to start using free software is to go get a GNU/Linux distro. Personally, I respect people who make their arguments with facts instead of one-liners. If you buy things because they sound like a good quick answer, then you start going for things like "trusted computing".

Finally, since this is a discussion of the HURD kernel: I think people should find this interesting. The GNU tools we are already familiar with are going to get a microkernel. Merit arguments aside, there are a lot of people who choose/like microkernels (apple, *BSD). Also, it's a kernel project that offers a ton of work to be done. After all, 1GB partitions is a sign that there is a long way to go. Entry level kernel hacking on a system that has a LONG way to go is easier than "even though you've never kernel hacked, figure out how to save a few cycles with this kernel module that has been working for five years". Also, keep in mind, the HURD has one major advantage over the Linux kernel. There is not a one man bottle neck.

Personally, I like the linux kernel and use several Gentoo systems, and some OpenBSD. But I always welcome another choice in software and look forward to seeing the HURD in a more usable state.


There is a fine line between picking your battles and cowardice

Re:You don't need a big hard drive to install Debi

[iggymanz]

All of this has been a major advancement in computer science

yes, that is ALL the HURD is about...it has nonething whatever to do with doing real live WORK....no one is going to be running the HURD in a data center in the next 5 years to do business. Linux can easily do all kinds of REAL LIVE WORK you'll never be able to get the HURD to do.

Maybe in another 10 years.......

Re:The Hurd

[Moloch666]

Heh, I love your sig. I giggle everytime I come across it. Evertime I read it as ten then read binary at the end and giggle to my self "oh 2 hehe."

Linux is a victim of its own success

[Royster]

It's turned out to be a pretty portable kernel. It runs on my Sharp Zaurus as well as large clusters and IBM mainframes. The initial development was very x86-centric, and it still is to some extent because that's where most of the users are, but most of the growth in the size of the tree is all of the different architectures supported.

I see the BitKeeper debate as one of ideology v. pragmatism. The GNU ideologue says "Use only free software" and the pragmatist says "Use free software if its up to the task". I've always sided with pragmatists.

Re:You don't understand Mr.Stallman's reasons at a

[Hitokage_Nishino]

Exactly, for all intents and purposes, GNU is only along for the ride, and Linux is driving. Given this, and the fact that hundreds of other changes in the system we call "Linux" were influneced by either the kernel or other significant userland apps that need to interface with it(like XFree), the concept of a general GNU system with a drop-in linux kernel is becoming more and more incorrect and outdated.

Re:The Hurd

[ealar dlanvuli]

Theres a shirt from thinkgeek.com that says that, one of the classier ones for buisness-slacker attire :)

Re:You don't understand Mr.Stallman's reasons at a

[Anonymous Coward]

OMFG, how arrogant!

Mr. Stallman believes than Linus deserves much credit for bringing a free kernel into the world ... and that's why it's listed as a part of the name

You mean that RMS is actually willing to give Linus a bit of credit for releasing Linux? How fucking gracious of him!

Isn't all this just posturing and rhetoric?

[Real World Stuff]

I believe Microsoft has been doing this (software) for years, and has made a very profitable business. It is hard to argue with a model that can defeat the U.S. government, and have 40 billion dollars in the bank. Sure it is not free like your siter after a cuple of beers, but business drives the economy.

OTOH something to think about

" The FSF is also modifying the GNU General Public License (GPL), though the fundamental principles will remain unchanged, according to Stallman. "We have looked at, for example, adding a clause that explicitly states that you give a patent license when you redistribute the software," Stallman added. "

nice try, but you are an idealist.

[SetiAlphaOne]

Don't give more credit than what is due...

Stallman wants it called GNU/Linux because of all the man-hour centuries the GNU team put in toward the application layer which relies on the kernel to run, and even though he has not been given permission to infringe on Torvalds' trademark outside of referring to a particular distro, he rants that every Linux system should support this name. Hell, there's an exerpt from the interview with Torvalds saying just that near the top of this page.

It is, at best, ego stroking. If you care about what you are running on your system, you should already know who contributed what aspects. Anything else is just a PR scheme or a need for personal recognition. Linux is Linux. It isn't a stretch to point out that most GNU apps are written by Linux people for use on their systems... hence RMS's whole reasoning for the glory becomes flawed. The centuries of man-hours have been toward a different end and simply bear GNU due to the GPL. Basically, there's no reason for this other than to say "Don't forget about us, we started the whole thing!"

Under this logic, windows graphic and multimedia designers should be calling their machines Adobe/Windows or Macromedia/Windows, etc, etc, etc.

Ignore it and maybe it will go away.

Looking forward

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm looking forward to using the GNU OS, so that I can finally ditch this huge monolithic beast.. The Hurd is so much more flexible.

Have any of you actually tried the HURD?

[rootmon]

I'm reading a lot of misinformation. First of all, THE HURD IS NOT A KERNEL! The HURD standards for Hird of Unix Replacing Daemons, wherein Hird stands for Hurd of Interfaces Representing Depth (a mutually recursive acronym according to the FAQ). The HURD is a bunch of servers that provide services around a microkernel. The revolutionary thing about it is that many of the traditional "kernel" tasks are moved into userspace. Result: the users are empowered. Why should mounting directories, shring NFS volumes, etc, require root? Normal users can use devices and network resources that previously only the administrator could control. For example, a normal user couldn't share the / volume, but he could share his home directory over the network, or mount a remote FTP site as a local folder in his home directory. (Yes, I did say mount FTP, HURD has some exciting new features like FTPFS, HTTPFS, etc, because so much of the implementation is left to the servers rather than the kernel.) Also, security is better, rather than root being the default access level, the default is guest priviledges, so priveledges start at none and are "tickets" are issued as credentials are elevated. Also, the Unix everything-is-a-file is taken further, where everything is part of the filesystem, including servers, etc. The HURD is a thing of beauty, and unless you've seen it down't knock it. I have a HURD test box on my LAN and it's running X with IceWM, Apache, FTP, NFS, etc. With some sound drivers and a complete pthreads implementation (which was just released), it could function as a workstation too. I don't see why we have to fight over Linux VS Hurd! Why can't we have both and pick the right tool for a specific job. I mean, we're the winners here, because the HURD gives us another *CHOICE*. It's about more freedom! So don't knock the HURD, most of the work is being done by a few programmers, Marcus Brinkman, Neal Walfield, and Thomas Bushnell. If Linus hadn't had the help of an army of developers where would Linux be? So give these guys their credit and realize that their efforts are giving you more freedom!

You'refilling my mouth with words not mine.

[Inoshiro]

"If you care about what you are running on your system, you should already know who contributed what aspects."

Most people don't know, even if they do care. Head over to a LUG meeting. I'd wager the great majority of them care, but only a few properly know the history of the system. Obviously if they're interested, education is something that should be given to them. That's why I tell them about the history of the system, and clarify for confused people (such as yourself) about why it's called GNU/Linux.

"Under this logic, windows graphic and multimedia designers should be calling their machines Adobe/Windows or Macromedia/Windows, etc, etc, etc."

Microsoft does follow the same naming contention very closely:
Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows ME
Windows NT
Windows XP

First is Windows, which encompases the API (libraries) and interface (UI) and most of the userland (the ubiquitous Notepad :)). Second is the kernel (the "friendly name" of it), with flavours following ("Professional," "Server," etc). RMS also answers why it's GNU/Linux instead of GNU Linux because:
"Following the rules of English, in the construction "GNU Linux" the word "GNU" modifies "Linux". This can mean either "GNU's version of Linux" or "Linux, which is a GNU package." Neither of those meanings fits the situation at hand."

The BSDs also follow this naming contention, with Free, Open, or Net prefixing the BSD kernel. GNU/BSD would be a BSD distribution which has a complete GNU userland around a BSD kernel, with the slash to denote that they are logically separated.

As for more credit than credit is due: I have no problem for giving RMS the credit for starting freely available, modifyably software back in the 1980s before anyone else was developing software for the purpose of giving it away. If you don't like it, TS. Unless you build a time machine to beat him to the punch, he deserves the credit.

Re:You'refilling my mouth with words not mine.

[SetiAlphaOne]

Microsoft does follow the same naming contention very closely:
Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows ME
Windows NT
Windows XP

Look at what you're typing:
Product Name - Flavor.

Just because RMS historically deserves credit for the freely available freely modifiable software does not mean he deserves any credit for Linux itself.

It is ego stroking. I'm all about giving him credit where deserved, but you are shooting for way too much.

Once the HURD is finished?

[McSpew]

Come on, once the Hurd is finished, GNU/Hurd will be years ahead of GNU/Linux, Windows NT, or Mac OSX.

Don't you mean if it's ever finished, it ought to be years ahead of whatever operating systems are in use on the by-then-ubiquitous quantum computers? Don't get me wrong, I love the idea that the HURD is pushing the limits of what OSes can and can't do, but it's much closer to a research project than an operating system. It's so ambitious that it can't ever just freeze the feature set and issue a release.

We've seen this kind of thing before. Borland suffered from it with its Windows port of dBase. Every time they were about to release, they'd discover some other new thing they just had to build into it, so they'd burn the codebase to the ground and start over. I don't remember when Borland finally released dBase for Windows, but it was at least two or three years late and by the time it shipped, FoxPro for Windows had stolen its market and dBase was irrelevant.

The point isn't that the HURD isn't cool (it is), the point is that the HURD takes too long to get where it's going, so by the time it gets there, it's no longer good enough. Who cares how cool the underlying OS features are if it can't support partitions greater than 2GB or common devices like USB mice?

I agree with the common point made here. If the HURD had shipped years ago, even as an incomplete OS, it would at least have some chance of improving and getting more people to contribute code. As it stands now, only the Stallman^H^H^H^H^H^H stalwart are involved and the project continues to drag on forever.

"...And in other news, Valve Software still declines to announce a release date for its mythical TeamFortress 2 product...."

Re:I disagree...IANAL

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Linus gave RMS permission to call anything Gnu/Linux

Nope. Read the interview again. He gave RMS permission to call GNU's distribution of Linux "GNU/Linux." Only thing is, that's not what RMS was asking for. So RMS does not now, and never has, had permission to use the "GNU/Linux" name the way he wants to.

I know RedHat, SuSE, Debian, Slackware, and Gentoo use kernels built by Gnu development tools

That's not important. Microsoft has repeatedly accused the GPL of being "viral," and of "infecting" every piece of software it touches. The big counter-argument to that point has been the GCC license, which explicitly says that programs compiled with GCC are not required to carry any particular license, and are not part of the GNU project. I use Mac OS X, and Apple's compiler is based on GCC. When I compile SurfWriter, I feel no particular compulsion to call it "GNU/SurfWriter." What development tools you use has no bearing at all on what you should call the end product.

Any software compiled with Gnu, upon a Linux-based OS, defines the software as Gnu/Linux.

By that same reasoning, any software compiled with GCC on Mac OS X defines the software was GNU/Mac OS X. Which is absurd. Your argument is flawed.

It also has nothing whatsoever to do with any other argument put forward to justify the bastardization "GNU/Linux."

Re:The Hurd

[paladin_tom]

There are performance advantages of a microkernel that come from your ability to run multiple memory servers with different policies on a single machine, and hence have proper support for regular applications, as well as realtime applications such as multimedia.

Re:BSD microkernel?

[MobyTurbo]

there are a lot of people who choose/like microkernels (apple, *BSD).

BSD (which is an OS that I've run and respect) is *NOT* a microkernel, in fact it's been implemented as a bit more monolithic than the Linux kernel. BSD is usually pointed to as an example of a monolithic kernel... Maybe the fact that Apple uses BSD userland has confused you a bit, no offense.

Re:Why L4

[Anonymous Coward]

That's neat.

L4 has some advanced concepts, although the Hurd, being UNIX-like, won't use them.

• A note on terminology: In L4, the term "task" does not exist, L4 only knows about address spaces, on top of which we will build a task system. An address space will always be used by one task, although theoretically we could use the same address space for different tasks, but of course only for one at a time. So when a task would terminate, we would not have to destroy the address space, but could reuse it later for a newly created task. Actually we won't do that because it would not give us a performance benefit and would make the management more complicated.

In the newer version of L4, there aren't really processes; there are threads and address spaces. One thread plus one address space is equivalent to a UNIX process. But L4 is more general than that.

Why is this useful? L4 is becoming an object-oriented OS. Think CORBA, DCOM, etc, but with proper OS support underneath. There are objects you can call, each in its own address space. Calls across address space boundaries are protected operations, like kernel calls.

Programs ought to be composed of big objects that intercommunicate, but UNIX doesn't do that well. L4 has the right underlying machinery, but the Hurd will, apparently, hide it from the user to create the illusion of UNIX. But maybe someone will do a native L4 CORBA, or something like it, that works with the Hurd. That could be the Free Software answer to Microsoft's ".NET".

But probably not. The level of effort is too low to make it happen.

the whole world is a desktop -- not

[g4dget]

If it's not in the main kernel distribution, it might as well not be there for many users: patching the kernel is beyond their ability. And it's beyond my own ability (or at least patience) as well for a number of devices I own: they require a cross-platform development environment to be installed, and few people seem to have figured out how to distribute pre-compiled kernel modules.

Once again, something seems missing.

[Inoshiro]

RMS is not being given credit at all. The GNU contributors (of which RMS is a part) is being given credit, when you say GNU/Linux.

If you have just the kernel, only the kernel running your system, then you have a pure, only-Linux system. Every disturibution I can think of is based on the GNU/Linux marriage. I don't see why this is so hard for people to understand, the entire system is more than a kernel.

Re:Once again, something seems missing.

[SetiAlphaOne]

Different perspectives, nothing more.

I've seen commercial *nix installations configured to make extensive use of GNU utilities, yet I would never expect to hear someone calling such a Solaris system a GNU/Solaris box. Maybe they should.

Re:I disagree...IANAL

[Twirlip of the Mists]

The BUILD of a kernel, for example, as reported by the uname user-land tool, says operating system is redhat-pc-gnu-linux.

Except it doesn't. I have four UNIX computers in front of me. Their "uname -s" strings are as follows:

Linux
Linux
FreeBSD
Darwin

I can't find a machine that reports redhat-pc-gnu-linux.

RMS is being taken the wrong way, I think, or could I be wrong and he realy is an asshole?

Bingo. ;-)

and dont donate to the FSF either?

[QuantumG]

If you're talking about a bunch of people on
Sourceforge (aka, The Projects) doing something because they think it is interesting them I'm all for your chocolate analogy. Unfortunately, the HURD is a project financed by donations to the Free Software Foundation. So if I don't like the particular chocolate that is the HURD, then I shouldn't donate to the FSF? That kind of seems like throwing out the baby with the bath water isn't it?

This is truely another example of democracy gone wrong. Some people get upset when others express their opinion, or try to convince you to change yours. Often their justification for this outrage is to point to the voting system, or worse yet, the market. They say "hey, don't try to make me think, just vote against me or don't buy my product". I cant count the number of times I have been in a group situation and heard the immediate call for a vote, without even the slightest preliminary discussion of the issues. Unfortunately people believe this is the only fair way to resolve conflict, but this not how democracy works!

GNU Hurd harmful to Open Source movement...

[harmless_mammal]

I'm sorry, I have a lot of respect for Stallman, but not on this. Any OS that has slow/buggy serial comm and has problems with 2+GB partitions is just soooooo 1980s'. It's going to be years before this OS is relevant to anything anyone's trying to do, and it's just going to be re-inventing Unix all over again. All those man-hours and creativity would be better spent creating something like a worthy successor to BeOS. Besides, who's ever going to want to admit to running an operating system that rhymes with "Hurl".

Re:GNU Hurd harmful to Open Source movement...

[Cro Magnon]

Besides, who's ever going to want to admit to running an operating system that rhymes with "Hurl".

It does NOT rhyme with "Hurl"! It rhymes with "Turd"!

19 year wait

[00_NOP]

What's all the fuss. MS have been writing operating systems for 21 years and they still can't get it right :->

Re:The Hurd

[paladin_tom]

The only interesting thing about HURD is that RMS is the lead developer!

Actually, RMS isn't the Hurd's lead developer. He's just the head of GNU, and the Hurd is a GNU project. And yes, the Hurd does get extra exposure by being a GNU project.

I'm interested in the Hurd because it's a Free mutli-server. SawMill is also interesting.

If you can find me a POSIX-compliant multi-server written by a single person in less time than it's taking the Hurd to get finished, I'd be very interested to hear about it.