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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."

35 of 552 comments (clear)

  1. Re:GNU/Hurd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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

  2. Hurd delayed? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm shocked! SHOCKED!

  3. cool! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:cool! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Yeah, because who needs things like:

      CDROM DRIVES
      3D Video cards
      Sound cards
      USB

      I mean, those things aren't very useful.

    2. Re:cool! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      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!

  4. Will they have to change the name? by TheConfusedOne · · Score: 4, Funny

    OSKit/HURD?

    --
    --- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
    1. Re:Will they have to change the name? by Arandir · · Score: 4, Funny

      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"?

      --
      A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
  5. 19 years by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  6. Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size by cscx · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

  7. Relevance by Perianwyr+Stormcrow · · Score: 2, Funny

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

    --

    What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey

    1. Re:Relevance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny
      You could be out masturbating right now, instead you're writing comments on Slashdot.

      I fail to see the distinction.

    2. Re:Relevance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

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

  8. Relevancy: by Wakko+Warner · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    --
    "Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
  9. Re:Just more Vaporware? by MissMyNewton · · Score: 5, Funny

    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. ;-)

    --

    ---

    Information wants...you to shut your pie hole.

  10. Delayed? by grub · · Score: 5, Funny


    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

    --
    Trolling is a art,
    1. Re:Delayed? by Xenographic · · Score: 3, Funny

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

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

    2. Re:Delayed? by ceejayoz · · Score: 3, Funny

      Well, D is the most likely one.

      And that's coming from an athiest.

    3. Re:Delayed? by isorox · · Score: 4, Funny

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

  11. Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 4, Funny
    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.

  12. Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size by the_other_one · · Score: 3, Funny

    The project has been underfunded

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

    --
    134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
  13. Re:GNU/Hurd by joe_bruin · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  14. I guess this makes sense by happystink · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    --

    sig:
    See the "..for smart people" banners Wired runs here? Look elsewhere guys.

  15. Re:GNU/Hurd by corbettw · · Score: 3, Funny

    "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.

    --
    God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
  16. Re:What is HURD? by Eil · · Score: 5, Funny


    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."

  17. Stability by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.

  18. Re:So, Linus was rfight? by Royster · · Score: 4, Funny
    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

    --
    I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
  19. Is this really a surprise anyway? by mosch · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  20. Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size by Some+Dumbass... · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    Hint: "man logrotate"

  21. Open letter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    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

  22. Re:The Hurd by Inthewire · · Score: 2, Funny

    once the Hurd is finished...

    ...there will be men on Mars growing vegetables.

    --


    Writers imply. Readers infer.
  23. Re:The Hurd by ealar+dlanvuli · · Score: 4, Funny

    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....

    --
    I live in a giant bucket.
  24. If you can't say something nice... by Ageless · · Score: 5, Funny

    [this space intentionally left blank]

  25. Re:Thank god they're fixing partition size by d_i_r_t_y · · Score: 2, Funny

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

  26. Re:screenshots? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    I'll trade you my hurd screenshots for your kernel32.dll screenshots.

  27. OpenBEOS by Abnormal+Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    At this rate, the OpenBEOS team will have the entire OS rewritten before the hurd kenel gets to version 1.0 :).