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Test Driving GNU Hurd, With Benchmarks Against Linux

Posted by Soulskill on from the have-you-hurd dept.

An anonymous reader writes "After last week's news that GNU Hurd is coming, Phoronix set out to install Debian GNU Hurd and to provide GNU Hurd vs. Linux benchmarks. Linux was mostly faster than The Hurd while also having much better hardware support, multi-core SMP support, and other modern functionality."

8 of 335 comments (clear)

  1. I guess it was inevitable... by 14erCleaner · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...now that Duke Nukem Forever has been released.

    --
    Have you read my blog lately?
    1. Re:I guess it was inevitable... by GameboyRMH · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Hurd, DNF, Wine 1.0, Gmail out of beta, Windows running stable, grannies using Linux, video chat on handheld computers, movies commonly coming out in 3D, video games you don't play with your hands, electric cars on dealership lots, a US president who isn't a white guy...

      We're in THE FUTURE. It just doesn't feel like it, because it's fuckin' lame.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    2. Re:I guess it was inevitable... by Baloroth · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I realize this is a joke, but the comparison is surprisingly apt. Projects that are delayed like this are rarely, if ever, successful. After so long in development, half the code is probably designed for hardware that is 20 years old, and the remaining half is designed for hardware spread across those intervening 20 years. Since the project was continually under development but never released, by the time they finish updating old sections of the code, the hardware they revised it to support is already several years old. And the code that was modern is even older. And since no one is actually using it, they don't have a massive base of users modifying, testing, and updating it like real operating systems (i.e. Linux, FreeBSD, etc) do.

      The result, if it ever gets released, is a cobbled together mess, most of which is outdated and barely works, and the rest is buggy and poorly coded because they were trying to shove it out the door. Any modern features that it has either don't work properly, or don't mesh with the rest of the project. Just like DNF. At this point, the Hurd developers should either admit defeat and close the project, or get enough people together that they can scrap everything, start from the ground up, and rewrite the whole thing within a few years. Otherwise, they will be constantly behind and never become relevant. Likely, they won't do this, which is why I doubt Hurd will ever really make any kind of impact. Being released might help, or it might just make people realize that this is essentially an operating system that was designed 20 years ago and should be abandoned. My money is on the latter.

      --
      "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
    3. Re:I guess it was inevitable... by thePowerOfGrayskull · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Hurd, DNF, Wine 1.0, Gmail out of beta, Windows running stable, grannies using Linux, video chat on handheld computers, movies commonly coming out in 3D, video games you don't play with your hands, electric cars on dealership lots, a US president who isn't a white guy...

      For bonus points, read the litany above to the tune of "We Didn't Start the Fire".

      More seriously, though, I disagree. It's not that it's lame, it's that it's half-assed.

      Sure, Hurd and DNF are done. Read TFA and the reviews, respectively.

      Wine is here, but there's still a ton of shit it can't run. Windows is stable, but aside from becoming more usable it's no revolutionary change over how we interact with computers compared to 15 years ago.

      Grannies run Linux, but for many more serious uses it's arguably not there for many other desktop uses.

      3d movies ... if you wear the special glasses and don't mind the 3d headache. Nor the price premium.

      Hands free video games... great. We flail at our screens with all of our limbs now. That's an improvement? That's the best we can do with this technology?

      Electric cars that are so expensive and so limited their only practical value is to prove that they can done, and to make some people feel better about their consumerism. That's not getting into the fact that we've simply shifted its carbon footprint to different places and times.

      A non-white president who pushed to have the recession "officially over" two years ago, while continuing to publish the adjusted unemployment numbers introduced by the Bush regime to help hide how bad things really are. Let's not get into the multiple ongoing military actions that have actually increased instead of decreasing. New boss/old boss.

      Video chat on handheld computers if you're on wifi, or if your carrier provides 4g, and if you don't mind getting raped on data charges, and if you have good network coverage, and if the other person has video, wants to use it, and has the same type of handheld OS that you do.

      Yeah, we have all the things the future promised us. But none of it is done right. It's all limited, half-assed, restricted, and - in too many ways - not adding any real value because of those problems.

  2. How free is free? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yes, it's slower, but did they measure how much freedom it achieved?

  3. Re:Brilliant, but... by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Funny

    It barely runs Hurd, for chrissake.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  4. Re:Linux vs HURD by gl4ss · · Score: 5, Interesting

    hurd is an example of how despite being open and free, you can still run the ship with closed minds. it almost seems like a grant money scam.

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  5. Re:GNU/Linux by mickwd · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I remember the days when you could come to Slashdot and expect a discussion on the technical merits or demerits of a subject like an alternative operating system, with input from one or two people who really knew their onions.

    I remember the days when people were technically curious about stuff which was different, just because it was different, and they wanted to know what it did and how it worked.

    Where did all those people go?