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Should The Next Windows Be Built On Linux?
scrm writes "The next version of Windows should be built on top of Linux, according to this article by Robert Cringely of PBS." If Microsoft wanted to, they could be the world's largest vendor of Free software .. couldn't they?
Although some of Cringely's comments about the DOS basis of Windows are off-base with regards to modern NT-kernel based versions of windows (the C:\ prompt is there because it has a compatibility layer) the idea that most of what we think of as "Windows" could be ported to a Linux or Unix base is basically correct. Just imagine an officially-sanctioned WINE with its own GUI system and configuration tools...it is not that far from reality.
.NET framework. This strategy makes far more sense, both considering the existing strengths of Windows, and Microsoft's emnity toward open-source software.
But the kernel is neither Windows' biggest problem, nor Linux's greatest asset. By all accounts, the Windows NT kernel is (or at least started out as) a very clean, modular microkernel system. It was built with a POSIX compatibility layer, and actually can host a traditional Unix userspace (and does, if you install the MS "Unix Services" package). On the other hand, Linux is a very straightforward, unexceptional reimplementation of a standard, monolithic Unix kernel, which has become very popular more or less because it works, it is free, and it was there when people needed it. Its novelty is that it allowed for the first complete Free Unix-like system (while *BSD was still in legal limbo). Microsoft could take that kernel, and modify it to run Windows, and neither they, nor we (Linux users), would gain anything...Microsoft would get an operating system more or less like what they have now, except with a pesky kernel under a free-software license, and we would get another version of Windows, which might, with the installation of an X11 server and a raft of libraries, be able to run Linux software, not that anyone would want to.
If Microsoft tries to "embrace and extend" Unix, they probably won't use Linux, or BSD for that matter. Unlike Apple several years ago, they already have a modern kernel. According to another recent Slashdot story, they are already trying to build a new shell environment based on the existing "Unix services" package, and probably running under the
"(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
Cringly is not very well informed in his article. He assumes Windows XP/2k ect are still built on top of DOS. Actually, if he'd read Showstoppers he'd know that the NT kernal was written from scratch, by a group of developers from Digital Equipment Co who set up essentially an independent shop within microsoft to make it. This is why NT is far more stable than earlier versions. The NT kernal is very similar to Unix in how it operates, and essentially is just as good. Also, if he'd read the book he'd know that the DOS command prompt is done via emulation, as well as legacy program support. The core of the system remains NT even when the emulator is running. Anyone who's actually used XP or 2k would find that the vast majority of problems are related to the underlying hardware drivers (this is the ONLY reason why Unix is more stable on some systems, because people building Unix servers use very solid hardware) or to the overlying windowing interface.
The C:\ prompt within a window has always been an illusionairy thing. Think about this for a second...
In Windows 3.1 you could run DOS-atop-Windows-atop-DOS... but if you ever tried to run "Win" in that environment, you would get a message that indicated that Windows-atop-DOS-atop-Windows-atop-DOS just wan't going to happen, you're not at a "real" DOS prompt. You didn't have a full-featured version of DOS there, just the interface level.
If you carry that forward to XP, the "DOS" in XP doesn't directly control the low-level stuff anymore. Some nameless, faceless part of Windows does.
DOS-within-Windows is now just an alturnate wacky skin for Windows Explorer. It's just a familiar text-based way to do things, not a low level OS anymore.
but explorer.exe is not the windowing layer/api, just like Gnome is not X-Window
Quick and dirty architectural comparisons:
Linux Kernal -> Windows Kernel
sh -> cmd.exe
X server -> GDI.exe
Window Manager -> Explorer.exe
CORBA -> (D)COM
Note these are just quick approximations. My point is that both OS's are reasonably mature and stable (baring spyware, etc.) and there are a lot of areas where both could improve, but porting Windows onto Linux doesn;t make sense for Microsoft today and is a lot more work than Cringly seems to think.
But then this guy has never seemed to know what he is talking about
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
In Windows 3.1 you could run DOS-atop-Windows-atop-DOS... but if you ever tried to run "Win" in that environment, you would get a message that indicated that Windows-atop-DOS-atop-Windows-atop-DOS just wan't going to happen, you're not at a "real" DOS prompt. You didn't have a full-featured version of DOS there, just the interface level.
Actually, it was the "full-featured version of DOS" running in that DOS prompt under Win3.1 and Win9X.
The X86 architecture has 2 main modes of operation: real mode (compatibility with 8086/186 processors -- all PCs to this day boot in this mode) and protected mode.
Under protected mode, it was possible to create something called a Virtual 8086-mode task. This allowed for real mode simulation within a protected mode environment, thus allowing real mode programs to work.
Each V86 session can, for most practical purposes, be made to think it is the only thing running (with no knowledge that it is being virtualized and having various instructions, operations, and interrupts intercepted by the protected mode operating system.)
Getting into protected mode from V86 mode is not possible, hence why Windows wouldn't run in a DOS box. It is also possible for real mode programs running in V86 mode to detect V86 mode by checking the appropriate processor status flag (I'm not sure if the OS can intercept this.)
DPMI (DOS Protected Mode Interface) is what eventually allowed 32-bit DOS programs to run in true real mode or in DOS boxes. In DOS boxes, Windows would be the DPMI server; but in real mode, you'd need an external program to get you into protected mode first -- CWSDPMI, for example.
Also, IIRC, Cringely is not one person but a pseudo-name used by a panel of writers.
;-)
Not exactly. Robert X. Cringely is kind of like the Dread Pirate Roberts: a serial pseudonym. The name was first used in InfoWorld magazine when Dvorak left-- and started losing his mind, if his last couple years' worth of columns are any evidence-- to replace the famous byline. The Robert X. Cringely we're all most familiar with is really Mark C. Stephens; he's the guy who wrote the books and hosted "Triumph of the Nerds" on PBS and who writes "I, Cringely." He was the third Robert X. Cringely to write for InfoWorld, and he wrote for them for 8 years. Since that Cringely's departure-- okay, firing-- from InfoWorld in '95, many others have written columns under that name for the magazine.
The real Robert X. Cringely has been retired for 15 years, and living like a king in Patagonia.
I write in my journal
It's been a long time that I read such completely bogus. I don't want to flame but I have to. Here it goes:
Even today, you can still get to a C: prompt under Windows XP, which means a disk operating system is hiding there no matter what Microsoft wants us to believe.
What a bunch of crap! So there is still a "disk operating system" under Linux because I can open a shell window, too? Man, what are you talking about?
DOS 7.1 brought the FAT32 file system to Win95, not the other way around
So what, FAT32 is a file system, and now - ? What does that say about the operating system? Nothing? Right.
Windows XP is not an operating system. It is a windowing system that sits atop an operating system much as KDE or Gnome sit atop Linux.
What's this guy's definition of an operating system? First, Windows has its OWN KERNEL (microkernel, btw). Second, it has its OWN DEVICE DRIVER and SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE. While I can agree that KDE/Gnome do a fairly large and important part of the work that non-Linux OSes provide as a whole package, Windows is doing ALL THE STUFF an OS does with *no* underlying foreign kernel or architecture.
The history of DR-DOS is especially interesting because it went through so many hands. [....]
Blah, blah, blah... where's all that DOS talk supposed to get us? Does it really make sense to talk about legacy crap like that? And if so, should we really begin to talk about text-mode-only Linux, from back in the days, also? What about legacy mainframe interfaces? Why? To prove the point that DOS is underlying of Windows just as Linux is the underlying architecture to KDE? WTF???
Now back to Microsoft putting Windows on top of Linux. Linux is better, faster, stronger than whatever is living underneath XP now, right? Performance would improve.
Give me a break here! Driver support for Windows often leads to much better performance (because PC manufacturers really cater to the Windows monopoly).
Apple has made a virtue of doing exactly this with MacOS-X, heralding its Mach kernel and BSD roots. Couldn't Microsoft do the same?
MacOS-X is a completely new system, it has a legacy-app compatibility layer (like Wine is for Linux) but otherwise it's a complete new system. And, they HAD to do it, because OS 9 and below where such utter crap (from a purely technical point of view, mind you). If MS where to switch (for whatever stupid reasons) to a *nix kernel like BSD or Linux they would have to provide a complete legacy Windows version inside the new system just to provide backwards-compatibility. And boy would *that* be slow! And, again, why??? It would mean to develop *LOADS* of new device drivers and APIs - for what?
I could go on like this forever. Articles like that make me want to puke. It would be suicide for MS if they did something like that, especially now, the first time they have a workable OS with Win2000/XP. Why oh why?
OK, I asked for it. Bomb me, I don't really care. Cringely articles I actually liked them in the past, but what the fuck is this load of crap supposed to be?