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Torvalds on the Microkernel Debate
diegocgteleline.es writes "Linus Torvalds has chimed in on the recently flamed-up (again) micro vs monolithic kernel, but this time with an interesting and unexpected point of view. From the article: 'The real issue, and it's really fundamental, is the issue of sharing address spaces. Nothing else really matters. Everything else ends up flowing from that fundamental question: do you share the address space with the caller or put in slightly different terms: can the callee look at and change the callers state as if it were its own (and the other way around)?'"
This my favorite Linus quote from that whole thread:
"In the UNIX world, we're very used to the notion of having
many small programs that do one thing, and do it well. And
then connecting those programs with pipes, and solving
often quite complicated problems with simple and independent
building blocks. And this is considered good programming.
That's the microkernel approach. It's undeniably a really
good approach, and it makes it easy to do some complex
things using a few basic building blocks. I'm not arguing
against it at all."
Linus FTFA:
"The fundamental result of access space separation is that you can't share data structures. That means that you can't share locking, it means that you must copy any shared data, and that in turn means that you have a much harder time handling coherency. All your algorithms basically end up being distributed algorithms.
And anybody who tells you that distributed algorithms are "simpler" is just so full of sh*t that it's not even funny.
Microkernels are much harder to write and maintain exactly because of this issue. You can do simple things easily - and in particular, you can do things where the information only passes in one direction quite easily, but anythign else is much much harder, because there is no "shared state" (by design). And in the absense of shared state, you have a hell of a lot of problems trying to make any decision that spans more than one entity in the system.
And I'm not just saying that. This is a fact. It's a fact that has been shown in practice over and over again, not just in kernels. But it's been shown in operating systems too - and not just once. The whole "microkernels are simpler" argument is just bull, and it is clearly shown to be bull by the fact that whenever you compare the speed of development of a microkernel and a traditional kernel, the traditional kernel wins. By a huge amount, too.
The whole argument that microkernels are somehow "more secure" or "more stable" is also total crap. The fact that each individual piece is simple and secure does not make the aggregate either simple or secure."
http://pastebin.ca/54695