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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."
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
I'm shocked! SHOCKED!
HURD has been in the works for over 20 years. This is starting to sound like "delays" on the Big Dig.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
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!!!
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
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.
OSKit/HURD?
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
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?
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.
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?
Photos.
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.
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?
Never overestimate the end user. -jeramy b. smith
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.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
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.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
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.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
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
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?
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
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).
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.
This sig no verb.
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?"
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.
"The lesson to be learned is not to take the comments on slashdot too literally." --Vinnie Falco, BearShare
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.
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.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
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,
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.
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.
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?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
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.
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.
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.
# (/.);;
- : float -> float -> float =
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.)
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.)
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.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
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....
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
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???
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.
*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.
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...
Fear trumps hope and ignorance trumps both
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.
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.
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.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
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.
Slashdot is a waste of time. I enjoy wasting time.
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.
/. 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)
And no, I'm not kidding. I guess I shouldn't take
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
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.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
"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.
MacOS X?
I have to wonder if the 3D-Realms team didn't use Hurd as their development/scheduling model...
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
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.
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.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
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.
When someone beats you by ten years it has nothing to do with software paradigms.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
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.
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
-----
- I am made of meat.
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.
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.
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
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.
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.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
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.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
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.
What's the next big headline, 'Flying Cars That Turn Into Briefcases Not Available Yet'?
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.
#define sig "Every social system runs on the people's belief in it."
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.
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.
I write in my journal
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.
XML causes global warming.
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.
#define sig "Every social system runs on the people's belief in it."
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.
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
I am shocked that someone who calls themselves "be-fan" would be calling microkernels BS. What about BeOS, for heaven's sake?
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
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?
#define sig "Every social system runs on the people's belief in it."
Try:
MkLinux and
Mac OS X
Of course, both are somewhat more successful than the HURD...
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
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.
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.
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...
aoeu
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.
I write in my journal
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.
Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.
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?
I write in my journal
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
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.
#define sig "Every social system runs on the people's belief in it."
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.
I write in my journal
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.
I write in my journal
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.
#define sig "Every social system runs on the people's belief in it."
You have got to be kidding, right?
I write in my journal
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.
#define sig "Every social system runs on the people's belief in it."
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.)
I write in my journal
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.
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.
Isn't there a Debian arch for Hurd? How can they offer a complete distro like Debian on Hurd if Hurd is so incomplete?
- Have a picture
once the Hurd is finished...
...there will be men on Mars growing vegetables.
Writers imply. Readers infer.
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.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
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.
I write in my journal
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."
I write in my journal
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.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
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....
------ 24.5% slashdot pure
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.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
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.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
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. :)
#define X(x,y) x##y
Peter Cordes ; e-mail: X(peter@cordes ,
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.
[this space intentionally left blank]
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.
> in theory the more elgant design should bring performance increases,
:(
Stupid need-for-portability, making everything slow
#define X(x,y) x##y
Peter Cordes ; e-mail: X(peter@cordes ,
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.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
That doesn't mean he sues people who don't call it just Linux; that means he encourages people to call it just Linux.
...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.
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'.
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.
I write in my journal
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.
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.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
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.
I write in my journal
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:
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.
At this rate, the OpenBEOS team will have the entire OS rewritten before the hurd kenel gets to version 1.0 :).
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.
I write in my journal
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.
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.
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.
11*43+456^2
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.
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.
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.
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)?
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
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.
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
http://unmoldable.com W:"No one of consequence" I:"I must know" W:"Get used to disappointment"
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.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
This has been tried (albeit not using Linux). It's called Mach, and is by many people considered somewhat of a failure.
OTOH something to think about
If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
No, it's built on the Mach kernel.
#define sig "Every social system runs on the people's belief in it."
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.
#define sig "Every social system runs on the people's belief in it."
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!
"As flies to the wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for sport." - William Shakespeare, King Lear
"If you care about what you are running on your system, you should already know who contributed what aspects."
:)). 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:
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
"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.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Don't you think a conversation would start if someone had posted this:
Joking or otherwise, the topic was brought up.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
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...."
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?
I write in my journal
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."
I write in my journal
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.
#define sig "Every social system runs on the people's belief in it."
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.
I write in my journal
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.)
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.
I write in my journal
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)
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.
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.
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.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
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.
I write in my journal
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!
How we know is more important than what we know.
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.)
I write in my journal
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.
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
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.
#define sig "Every social system runs on the people's belief in it."
It does NOT rhyme with "Hurl"! It rhymes with "Turd"!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.