GNU Hurd 0.5, GNU Mach 1.4, GNU MIG 1.4 Released

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GNU Hurd 0.5, GNU Mach 1.4, GNU MIG 1.4 Released

Posted by timothy on Friday September 27, 2013 @02:02PM from the gathering-storm dept.

jrepin writes "Which day could be better suited for publishing a set of Hurd package releases than the GNU project's 30th birthday? These new releases bundle bug fixes and enhancements done since the last releases more than a decade ago; really too many (both years and improvements) to list them individually, The GNU Hurd is the GNU project's replacement for the Unix kernel. It is a collection of servers that run on the Mach microkernel to implement file systems, network protocols, file access control, and other features that are implemented by the Unix kernel or similar kernels (such as Linux)."

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I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Freshly+Exhumed · 2013-09-27 14:07 · Score: 5, Funny

30 years for Hurd 0.5, so 1.0 will be available in 2043?

--
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
1. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by MrEricSir · 2013-09-27 14:10 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  GNU is 30 years old, but Hurd is "only" 23. It started while the first Bush was still president rather than Reagan.
  
  --
  There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
2. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by erroneus · 2013-09-27 14:12 · Score: 2
  
  I was thinking something along those lines myself. To arrive at "1.0" would mean that it would be feature complete and stable according to the "1.0" set defined when "1.0" was created as a target. That already makes me wonder if Hurd is absolete before it has been completed.
3. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Lunix+Nutcase · 2013-09-27 14:13 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  And in 2063, Steam for Hurd!!!
4. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Freshly+Exhumed · 2013-09-27 14:20 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  So they'll complete Hurd 1.0 just in time for the 2038 bug! That gives them 23 more years to go completely 64-bit by then.
  
  --
  I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
5. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by iggymanz · 2013-09-27 14:20 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  wrong. the initial failed attempt at HURD started in 1986 with a BSD 4.4 like kernel. The project is thus 27 years old. still not stable, not suitable for any production use, and only runs on i386, it is a failure
6. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Cinder6 · 2013-09-27 14:27 · Score: 2
  
  Christ, and we thought Duke Nukem took forever.
  
  --
  If you can't convince them, convict them.
7. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by krkhan · 2013-09-27 14:30 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Just in time for Chrome 2147483647.
8. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 15:11 · Score: 0
  
  Makes you wonder??!
9. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 15:12 · Score: 0
  
  "obsolete" HTH!
10. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 15:39 · Score: 1
  
  You guys need to stop thinking about time so linearly.....
11. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by TheloniousCoward · 2013-09-27 15:57 · Score: 2
  
  Yes. They plan to speed up its development by rewriting it in Perl 6.
12. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 16:14 · Score: 0
  
  2100 - Year of the HURD desktop!
13. Re: I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by jmccay · 2013-09-27 16:21 · Score: 1
  
  Nah. More likely 2103. Don't forget the years it will take to actually take it seriously.
  
  --
  At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
14. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by ArchieBunker · 2013-09-27 16:25 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  The people in charge of that are so out of touch they should be committed in a mental hospital. It wasn't that long ago they finally supported partitions bigger than 2GB, yes two GigaBytes. Think about that fact while you also learn that RMS uses an old terminal or some such nonsense along with a script to gather Google searches and email the text to him. He lacks a graphical interface.
  
  --
  Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
15. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 16:26 · Score: 0
  
  It's a failure when developers decide to drop it and let it sleep. When there are developers in the project, it's a success.
16. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by phantomfive · 2013-09-27 16:33 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  My understanding is the people who are doing it now are mainly doing it for fun, because they like kernel programming. there is no longer a pressing urgent need for a free kernel. And if they come up with some good ideas, they will be copied into more mainstream kernels.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
17. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Jeremy+Erwin · 2013-09-27 16:39 · Score: 2
  
  Any truly long term development project must consider the technological singularity. It is a waste of time and effort not to take advantage of this fabulous opportunity.
18. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by NJRoadfan · 2013-09-27 17:16 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Think of "1.0" as an asymptote. It'll approach 1.0 but never actually reach it.
19. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 18:38 · Score: 0, Interesting
  
  Oh, wow. Why that much venom? What's your agenda?
  What have you done for me? Who are you?
  Where I definitely know what RMS has done for me and am thankful for that.
20. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Pseudonym · 2013-09-27 21:00 · Score: 1
  
  Just in time for Half-Life 2: Episode 2.2.
  
  --
  sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
21. Re: I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by otherniceman · 2013-09-27 21:22 · Score: 1
  
  You sound like my mom.
22. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2013-09-27 21:26 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Think about that fact while you also learn that RMS uses an old terminal or some such nonsense along with a script to gather Google searches and email the text to him.
  If you think about it, it's a fairly effective way of avoiding getting hacked (or at least minimizing the attack surface).
  
  --
  Ezekiel 23:20
23. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by aix+tom · 2013-09-27 21:45 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Yea. Actually, from a non-linier, non subjective point of view it is more like a big ball of wibbily wobbly timey wimey...stuff
24. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 22:00 · Score: 0
  
  And as for "The Year Of HURD On The Desktop".... millions of kalpas won't be long enough....
25. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 22:08 · Score: 0
  
  It is also a failure when it becomes irrelevant. Once upon a time an open Unix replacement would have been great. Now? Mostly irrelevant.
  Don't get me wrong, it could still be a fun project but its relevance comparable to Haiku and AROS.
26. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by TheRaven64 · 2013-09-27 22:17 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  And they've been using it to explore some quite interesting ideas in kernel design. The fine-grained compartmentalism that a microkernel provides (at the expense of some performance) is starting to look more attractive in a world where computers run in very hostile environments and yet even a 50% slower kernel would have a negligible impact on user-perceived performance (or battery life).
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
27. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 22:32 · Score: 0
  
  Like with Haskell?
28. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by fatphil · 2013-09-27 22:51 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  The funny thing is that for some kernels, it's perfectly true. I know the kernel I run on this workstation here gives about 99.5% of the cycles to the userspace programs that I launch. Yet playing very briefly with a windows 8 system a few months back (it survived about 20 minutes between arrival at the office and having linux put on it), the kernel and hundreds of intimately-bound-I-don't-know-what-the-fuck-they-do-or-why-I-would-ever-want-them daemons were taking up between 5% and 10% of the CPU constantly. The former I would happily accept a 50% increase in overhead to, I'm perfectly happy only having 99.25% to myself. But the latter would have ground to a halt if there were any more impediments to interprocess communication.
  
  --
  Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
29. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 22:53 · Score: 0
  
  Yea. Actually, from a non-linier, non subjective point of view it is more like a big ball of wibbily wobbly timey wimey *multidimensional polyhedra*
  TFTFY
30. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by cascadingstylesheet · 2013-09-27 23:27 · Score: 1
  
  Though one could be forgiven for getting the timeline mixed up, given all the bizarre declarations, bizarre nomenclature, confusion of theoretical projects with real projects, dogmatic insistence that things are in fact whatever Stallman calls them, etc.
31. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by serviscope_minor · 2013-09-27 23:36 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  The people in charge of that are so out of touch they should be committed in a mental hospital.
  Well, aren't you so high and mighty and important shitting on someone else's personal project.
  That's all hurd is: it's a small hobby project by a very small number of programmers.
  It's not for you, it's for them. Being "in touch" with you is not a requirement.
  Oh and by the way, I've no idea what your hobbies are, but I'm sure they suck and you're crap and should be in a mental hospital.
  Think about that fact while you also learn that RMS uses an old terminal or some such nonsense along with a script to gather Google searches and email the text to him. He lacks a graphical interface.
  Firstly, I already knew that.
  Secondly, so what? That's his choice. You know he does that on GNU/Linux, right?
  On a MIPS laptop which doesn't even run hurd? You know that too, right?
  
  --
  SJW n. One who posts facts.
32. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by c · 2013-09-27 23:37 · Score: 2
  
  30 years for Hurd 0.5, so 1.0 will be available in 2043?
  Well, no. Being a Unix replacement, I'd expect it sometime around 1975.
  
  --
  Log in or piss off.
33. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by jones_supa · 2013-09-27 23:57 · Score: 1
  
  30 years for Hurd 0.5, so 1.0 will be available in 2043?
  I know I'm being a pedantic pangolin here and ruining your joke without any good reason, but we should still remember that version numbers are not floating point numbers. Rather, they contain groups of integer numbers separated with a dot. So after 0.9 there might still be 0.10, 0.11, etc...
34. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by drinkypoo · 2013-09-28 00:24 · Score: 2
  
  He's protected from the Snow Crash, but the Blight will still own his computer.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
35. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by mellon · 2013-09-28 00:33 · Score: 2
  
  Meh, the blight will just hack the people in the cubicle next to him and send them over to make him sit in front of the programming screen. No need to hack him through an ASCII terminal. Prepare to be assimilated! (Speaking of which, why do Borgs always say stuff like that? How do you prepare to be assimilated?)
36. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Stewie241 · 2013-09-28 00:47 · Score: 1
  
  I thought the Borg said things more along the lines of 'You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile'. Not so much a request to prepare, just a statement that it will happen.
37. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Urkki · 2013-09-28 01:42 · Score: 0
  
  Have you ever looked at how much CPU a Linux OS takes, when certain cron jobs kick in? Just horrible!
  Oh, but they are in userspace and would not be affected by kernel becoming slower? Well, I'm fairly sure those Windows services were also in userspace.
  And 20 minutes, you say? The Windows box was probably downloading and processing updates. You know, when booting up a Linux which has never been updated, it would also be prudent to have it updated during the first 20 minutes.
  My point is, even though Windows may suck in many exquisite ways, your post is way off the mark.
38. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by fnj · 2013-09-28 01:46 · Score: 1
  
  Let me try to understand this.
  0.5% overhead is fine with you. I am absolutely in agreement with this.
  5-10% overhead horrifies you. OK, you're starting to lose me here. 5-10% overhead is canceled out completely by maybe TWO MONTHS of CPU development. It's nothing. Nada.
  Anticipation of an implied rise to perhaps 7.5-15% overhead seems to make you reel in dismay. That seems to you to equate to the system grinding to a halt. Funny, in my world it translates to a system which is 85-92.5% as efficient as a theoretical zero-overhead system. I wouldn't welcome it for no reason, but hypothetically if it gave me significantly better reliability and security I would be inclined to accept it quite happily. Such an overhead is completely imperceptible subjectively. You would never notice it was there if you didn't instrument the system and run some benchmarks.
  OTOH, lengthy UI latencies of one or more seconds at a time (Windows, I'm talking about you) are extremely noticeable and objectionable. In the previous considerations, I'm assuming that the overhead is not necessarily producing lengthy latencies.
39. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by fnj · 2013-09-28 01:49 · Score: 1
  
  Not to mention 0.9.1, 0.9.1.1, 0.9.1.1.1 ...
40. Re: I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by mrchaotica · 2013-09-28 02:13 · Score: 1
  
  Dangit, you were this close to an "All your base..." meme!
  
  --
  "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
41. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by iggymanz · 2013-09-28 02:23 · Score: 1
  
  but other projects have done such things *successfully* and could even be used on a real server to provide a real service, for example minix 3
42. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-28 02:49 · Score: 0
  
  Well, there seem to be three thought processes with version numbers of stuff that I deal with these days.
  There's LaTeX, where you approach perfection in an asymptotic way.
  There's Chrome, etc., where you get gigantic version numbers and eventually just say "ah, screw it, we'll update as we like".
  And there's some OSes, etc., where you get to some suitably high number, and when you think it's too high, you just rename it something else and start over.
43. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by shaitand · 2013-09-28 03:03 · Score: 2
  
  "GNU/Linux"
  
  I didn't know GNU produced a Linux system. Yes, I know the reference it is the result of petty jealousy and attempt at attention grabbing, nothing more.
44. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by phantomfive · 2013-09-28 03:05 · Score: 1
  
  5-10% overhead is canceled out completely by maybe TWO MONTHS of CPU development.
  
  I really wish CPUs were increasing speed at that rate
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
45. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-28 03:36 · Score: 0
  
  They are. Simple math shows that if performance doubles every 18 months then, per month, it increases by approximately 4 percent for a multiplicative increase. If instead you are talking an additive increase, then it increases by just over 5.5% a month.
46. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-28 03:49 · Score: 0
  
  I didn't know GNU produced a Linux system.
  They didn't, they produced the GNU system, which can run with a Linux kernel... but you know this. There's nothing wrong with calling it "GNU/Linux" if that's what it includes.
  Personally, I don't have any problem just calling a GNU/Linux distro "Linux" since it can be viewed as a distro of the Linux kernel with various packages included, such as GNU, X11, Apache, etc. Not to mention there are Linux distros that don't include GNU at all. You can rename a GPL fork whatever you like, but I think it's fair to give GNU credit for the part they did produce.
47. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by drinkypoo · 2013-09-28 04:26 · Score: 1
  
  Meh, the blight will just hack the people in the cubicle next to him and send them over to make him sit in front of the programming screen.
  Not this far into the slowness.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
48. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Kjella · 2013-09-28 04:43 · Score: 1
  
  Yet playing very briefly with a windows 8 system a few months back (it survived about 20 minutes between arrival at the office and having linux put on it), the kernel and hundreds of intimately-bound-I-don't-know-what-the-fuck-they-do-or-why-I-would-ever-want-them daemons were taking up between 5% and 10% of the CPU constantly.
  OEM or corporate install full of crapware? Pure Windows (installed yourself from an OEM/retail disc) is a whole different ballgame, Microsoft actually doesn't add much crap like that. I don't have personal experience with a clean Win8 install, but at least on Win7 it's 99-100% idle when I don't do anything.
  
  --
  Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
49. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Zero__Kelvin · 2013-09-28 05:01 · Score: 2
  
  Keep in ,mind that with Windows, Internet Explorer is an integral part of the kernel !* ;-)
  
  *No, I don't believe that, but Bill Gates certainly wanted US Courts to think so back in the day.
  
  --
  Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
50. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Zero__Kelvin · 2013-09-28 05:11 · Score: 0
  
  "Have you ever looked at how much CPU a Linux OS takes, when certain cron jobs kick in? Just horrible!"
  Certain cron jobs? Do you even know what cron is or how it works? Presumably you have a cron entry that runs "Eat-All-My-CPU-So-I-Can-Make-Absurd-Statements-On-Slashdot.sh".
  
  "And 20 minutes, you say? The Windows box was probably downloading and processing updates. "
  Since when does Windows automatically apply updates at power on without the new user telling it to do so? More likely it was still completing the boot process after doing the initial desktop paint "fake-out" that is done to make it appear that it boots much more quickly than it actually does. ;-)
  
  "My point is, even though Windows may suck in many exquisite ways, your post is way off the mark."
  Where is it off the mark? While yours is clearly absurd, I see nowhere where the GPs was off the mark.
  
  --
  Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
51. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Zero__Kelvin · 2013-09-28 05:14 · Score: 2
  
  Your post represents a complete mis-characterization of Moore's Law.
  
  --
  Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
52. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by TheRaven64 · 2013-09-28 05:16 · Score: 1
  
  MINIX 3 is a pretty conventional microkernel. Take a look, for example, at some of the virtual memory stuff done in L4/HURD. This can be seen as a continuation of the external pager support in Mach, but with a much simpler and cleaner design and a lot of direct application to current workloads.
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
53. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by hobarrera · 2013-09-28 05:21 · Score: 1
  
  cron is userspace, so that's not an issue, he's talking about kernel-used CPU cycles, of stuff tighly integrated into the lower levels of the OS.
  crontab -e will let you edit cron tabs that you distro preconfigured easily, completely unrelated to Linux itself.
  
  And 20 minutes, you say? The Windows box was probably downloading and processing updates. You know, when booting up a Linux which has never been updated, it would also be prudent to have it updated during the first 20 minutes.
  Not unless I configure it to do so.
54. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-28 05:49 · Score: 0
  
  And if the number of fixes are too many to list, there is a fix between every arbitrary selected pair of fixes and for every these listable fixes there are still more fixes with bits such as taken every consecutive bit from the infinite list of fixes diagonally across.
55. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by jonbryce · 2013-09-28 06:19 · Score: 1
  
  It is an integral part of the operating system, not the kernel.
56. Re: I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by RyuuzakiTetsuya · 2013-09-28 06:20 · Score: 1
  
  I don't think that project will ever get off the ground.
  GNU/Hurd time and Valve time intersecting means a catastrophe of epic proportions.
  
  --
  Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
57. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Zero__Kelvin · 2013-09-28 06:22 · Score: 1
  
  It is neither.
  
  --
  Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
58. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by ultranova · 2013-09-28 07:05 · Score: 1
  
  How do you prepare to be assimilated?
  
  Quickly memorize My Immortal so you'll be spit out and humanity classified as "poisonous - don't eat"?
  It works for caterpillars.
  
  --
  Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
59. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by unixisc · 2013-09-28 08:57 · Score: 1
  
  And they've been using it to explore some quite interesting ideas in kernel design. The fine-grained compartmentalism that a microkernel provides (at the expense of some performance) is starting to look more attractive in a world where computers run in very hostile environments and yet even a 50% slower kernel would have a negligible impact on user-perceived performance (or battery life).
  But are these achievable under Mach? I know that some microkernels seem to be very good - like Chorus, L4 and now Minix 3.x. But has Mach progressed much since 3.0? Only positive thing about it is that it is multi-platform, but w/ just x64 and ARM remaining, that's not saying much.
  HURD had experimented w/ a number of microkernels, but I think they'd have done well to fork Minix 3.x and port the HURD there. Oh, and as some noted above, since they are so late, they might as well go directly to 64-bit, and work on being portable on a variety of architectures. If they do it right, it could even be the basis for Replicant.
60. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by jones_supa · 2013-09-28 11:21 · Score: 1
  
  Do you happen to be the Product Manager for Adobe Flash? ;)
61. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by raju1kabir · 2013-09-28 14:41 · Score: 1
  
  I didn't know GNU produced a Linux system.
  They maintain many of the userspace tools that make it actually, you know, usable.
  Linux alone is just the kernel. That's a small part of the actual system that makes the computer do things.
  
  --
  "Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
62. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by iggymanz · 2013-09-28 15:06 · Score: 1
  
  MINIX 3 is a properly engineered system, with reality trumping ivory tower theory. HURD has issues that are unsolved to this day.
63. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by shaitand · 2013-09-28 15:17 · Score: 1
  
  The kernel is the part that actually provides the system. GNU maintains some very handy optional utilities/libraries that one might opt to run on that system and that often are chosen. The kernel can run without those utilities/libraries. The utilities can not run without some flavor of operating system to run them on, Linux being one example of such.
  
  GNU produces some very valuable stuff. That is worthy of recognition and acclaim. It provides not the slightest bit of credibility to a petty tantrum and rant trying to steal the acclaim of a completely distinct project by asserting everyone should stick your teams name IN FRONT of the name of that project if anyone happens to bundle the two together.
  
  Or perhaps it is the compiler and c libraries. There are other options for that as well. Why aren't the GNU team trying to assert that every obscure project nobody cares about that is compiled with their compiler be called GNU/x where x is the name of that project? It would make more sense than cherry picking a project that is popular... at least it would if it weren't about simply being jealous about that project getting more mainstream attention than theirs.
64. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by raju1kabir · 2013-09-28 15:23 · Score: 1
  
  The kernel can run without those utilities/libraries. The utilities can not run without some flavor of operating system to run them on, Linux being one example of such.
  The kernel can't do anything useful without the userspace stuff, the GNU tools can't do anything without a kernel. They're both dependent on the other, and the "other" is fungible but they are most commonly found in this pairing. It's a fairly equal relationship.
  
  --
  "Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
65. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by shaitand · 2013-09-28 16:00 · Score: 1
  
  "The kernel can't do anything useful without the userspace stuff"
  
  False. The kernel can do exactly what it is supposed to do, provide a managed and unified system for applications to target. You can write a program to run on top of the Linux kernel/OS that doesn't require a shell, or any GNU tools. There are alternatives that provide similar functionality to the GNU tools as well. The kernel is no way dependent on the GNU tools they are merely a popular choice to combine with the kernel. Similarly, the GNU tools are not dependent on the Linux OS but they are dependent on there being an OS to run them on.
  
  It is quite likely there are several Linux systems in your home that do not include GNU tools at all. You may not even be aware they are running Linux.
66. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by raju1kabir · 2013-09-28 17:00 · Score: 2
  
  Yeah, none of this addresses my argument.
  There are also several systems in my home with large bases of installed GNU tools, that don't run Linux at all.
  Linux doesn't need GNU tools. Nobody's arguing with you there.
  GNU tools don't need Linux.
  But the vast majority of the time, you find them together. Specifically, in all the distributions that some (admittedly persnickety) people like to call GNU/Linux.
  
  --
  "Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
67. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Urkki · 2013-09-29 03:46 · Score: 1
  
  cron is userspace, so that's not an issue, he's talking about kernel-used CPU cycles, of stuff tighly integrated into the lower levels of the OS.
  crontab -e will let you edit cron tabs that you distro preconfigured easily, completely unrelated to Linux itself.
  
  And 20 minutes, you say? The Windows box was probably downloading and processing updates. You know, when booting up a Linux which has never been updated, it would also be prudent to have it updated during the first 20 minutes.
  Not unless I configure it to do so.
  The mentioned Windows services are also userspace, and would not be hit by kernel getting more overhead, which was the whole point.
  Also, it seems this Windows was pre-installed, and anybody shipping pre-installed Windows without turning automatic updates on should be shot for malicious negligence. If you install it yourself, IIRC you will be prompted how you want to handle updates (may depend on version).
68. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by shaitand · 2013-09-29 03:57 · Score: 1
  
  "Linux doesn't need GNU tools. Nobody's arguing with you there.
  
  GNU tools don't need Linux."
  
  "Specifically, in all the distributions that some (admittedly persnickety) people like to call GNU/Linux."
  
  You do know that the debate is about whether or not the GNU demand that everyone refer to Linux as GNU/Linux is reasonable? At least, that's what I thought we were debating. If you agree to the above then I'm just plain confused.
69. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Urkki · 2013-09-29 04:04 · Score: 1
  
  And 20 minutes, you say? The Windows box was probably downloading and processing updates.
  No, just kernel + system services.
  
  You know, when booting up a Linux which has never been updated, it would also be prudent to have it updated during the first 20 minutes.
  In your assumed on-line scenario, it installs up-to-date, thank you.
  Uh... The assumed scenario is, a new computer arrives with who-knows-how-old pre-installed Windows image... It's irrelevant wether it was installed up-to-date or not whenever the image was created, if it has not been updated since then.
  Also, this was about changing kernel to be microkernel, with more overhead. Services are not kernel, so any number which includes them is irrelevant in the context presented in the post I replied to.
  Either the computer was doing something related to being turned on for the first time, or there was some serious crapware installed. This Windows f'ing Vista running on this low-end laptop from 2009, with single core Celeron, and which has never been reinstalled, uses 0..1% CPU when I check Task Manager performance graph. If a new computer shows 10%, then it's not the kernel.
70. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Urkki · 2013-09-29 04:15 · Score: 1
  
  "Have you ever looked at how much CPU a Linux OS takes, when certain cron jobs kick in? Just horrible!"
  Certain cron jobs? Do you even know what cron is or how it works? Presumably you have a cron entry that runs "Eat-All-My-CPU-So-I-Can-Make-Absurd-Statements-On-Slashdot.sh".
  
  "And 20 minutes, you say? The Windows box was probably downloading and processing updates. "
  Since when does Windows automatically apply updates at power on without the new user telling it to do so? More likely it was still completing the boot process after doing the initial desktop paint "fake-out" that is done to make it appear that it boots much more quickly than it actually does. ;-)
  
  "My point is, even though Windows may suck in many exquisite ways, your post is way off the mark."
  Where is it off the mark? While yours is clearly absurd, I see nowhere where the GPs was off the mark.
  Indeed, there was probably something equal to cron job "Eat-All-My-CPU-So-I-Can-Make-Absurd-Statements-On-Slashdot.sh" on that PC, because now that I could check, normal CPU usage of idle Windows box seems to be 0..1%. The point is, that is not kernel, that's userspace... Read the post I replied to again, it talks about increasing kernel overhead. The overhead is exactly same for system services and other userspace programs.
  Anyway, your guess about "completing boot process" may well be spot on, though it probably was "first boot process" then, because slowest I've seen Windows finishing startup for real, on a laptop with encrypted slow HD and a ton of corporate crapware, is around 10 minutes.
  But GP was off the mark by considering the 10% figure (whatever the reason for it) including system services in the 50% microkernel overhead thought experiment. If system services suffer the overhead, then so would any userspace programs.
71. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by srobert · 2013-09-29 06:18 · Score: 1
  
  So will 2043 be the year of the GNU/Hurd Desktop?
72. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by raju1kabir · 2013-09-29 08:04 · Score: 1
  
  My understanding has always been that RMS wants people to refer to distributions that contain the Linux kernel and GNU userspace tools to refer to it as GNU/Linux... not that he wants the Linux kernel itself to be referred to as GNU/Linux.
  
  --
  "Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
73. Re: I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-29 10:50 · Score: 0
  
  Case in point: Android. The kernel with other apps targeting the kernel without GNU utilities.
74. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by shaitand · 2013-09-29 14:07 · Score: 1
  
  "My understanding has always been that RMS wants people to refer to distributions that contain the Linux kernel and GNU userspace tools to refer to it as GNU/Linux... not that he wants the Linux kernel itself to be referred to as GNU/Linux."
  
  Which you apparently think is ridiculous as well:
  
  "Specifically, in all the distributions that some (admittedly persnickety) people like to call GNU/Linux."
  
  Right, so again. It is difficult to argue with someone who agrees with you.
75. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by raju1kabir · 2013-09-29 14:13 · Score: 1
  
  I think they are overly sensitive about it, but I do see where they're coming from. It is in fact possible to see both sides of an issue, if you open your mind a little.
  And, importantly, the straw man that you're arguing against (that RMS wants people to call the kernel GNU/Linux) is way out in left field. If you are confused about GNU's position, it's clearly laid out here: http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html
  
  --
  "Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
76. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-29 21:00 · Score: 0
  
  Stallman goes to great length when he is surfing the net. He has long before anyone else, been suspicious against government. After the Snowden leaks, it turns out Stallman was right to be cautious. It turned 30 years ago, he was right too, when he envisioned a free Unix clone - without him Linux would not have existed. It seems that Stallman is ahead of his time. Far ahead. For instance, when you talk about editors or IDEs - expert users always shun the mouse and GUI, and only use keyboard, because you are far faster with shortcuts. I am convinced Stallman is far faster using his command line than us with our mouses and GUI. Only amateurs prefer GUI and mouse. Expert users always prefer keyboard and shortcuts. This is true. And Stallman is an expert.
77. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by twocows · 2013-09-30 03:48 · Score: 1
  
  The "kernel" is not an operating system, and without GNU, you do not have a functional system. See: http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#tools
78. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by shaitand · 2013-09-30 04:41 · Score: 1
  
  The GNU faq does not set the definitions. A monolithic kernel is a fully functional system once booted and without GNU you have a perfectly functional system. Ask millions of embedded devices that don't utilize anything GNU or perhaps simply look at Android, a distribution built on the Linux OS that doesn't use GNU.
79. Re:I might not be here for Hurd 1.0 by Specter · 2013-09-30 07:47 · Score: 1
  
  "Resistance is futile"
  I thought that was the Vogons.
Understatement of the year by tmark · 2013-09-27 14:11 · Score: 2

"Development of the Hurd has proceeded slowly." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Hurd)
As per http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd/status.html: " It may not be ready for production use, as there are still some bugs and missing features".
Exactly how long has it been like this ? I tracked this project for about a decade until I concluded it would never be ready for production - over a decade ago.
1. Re:Understatement of the year by NJRoadfan · 2013-09-27 17:17 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  You knew it was bad when Duke Nukem Forever actually made it to stores.
2. Re:Understatement of the year by fnj · 2013-09-28 01:51 · Score: 1
  
  It makes glaciation, erosion of canyons, and rise and fall of mountains appear to be blindingly rapid.
3. Re:Understatement of the year by jones_supa · 2013-09-28 03:28 · Score: 1
  
  In retrospective, the production has taken so long that the Hurd project should not have been started at all.
a better day? by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · 2013-09-27 14:11 · Score: 1

Oh, I don't know maybe some day in the early 90's. Back when it would have been useful to me. /kidding only a little.

--
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Not a replacement for Unix kernel by iggymanz · 2013-09-27 14:14 · Score: 0

the HURD is a toy project, it cannot be used for any production system. it only runs on an obsolete processor architecture i386.
1. Re:Not a replacement for Unix kernel by Jeremy+Erwin · 2013-09-27 16:32 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  I'm looking forward to the Alpha port, though I'm also hearing good things about Itanium.
2. Re:Not a replacement for Unix kernel by iggymanz · 2013-09-28 02:29 · Score: 1
  
  and don't forget about the PPC port on that site, with posts all the way into 2003, that project is on fire by HURD standards. We'll finally be able to run HURD on our Macs........*!* oh wait.......
3. Re:Not a replacement for Unix kernel by unixisc · 2013-09-28 09:03 · Score: 1
  
  I once noted that the best CPU for pure FSF/GNU stuff would be a VLIW CPU. Since all the dynamic analysis is done by the compiler, every time a CPU undergoes changes, backwards compatibility should be broken. Bigger register set? Recompile. More branch units? Recompile. More ALUs? Recompile. With all that recompiling that is needed, the FSF goals of software being completely liberated in terms of the source code being always available would be more successfully enforced.
  Not that that would apply to the Itanium, since that CPU has become more RISC in Itanium 3 than it initially was.
4. Re:Not a replacement for Unix kernel by Jeremy+Erwin · 2013-09-28 10:14 · Score: 1
  
  Yes. It would be the perfect cpu for a gentoo style OS. But from what I heard, Itanium failed to live up to its promise because the compilers, particularly gcc. weren't that good at optimization.
The longest kernel development history... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 14:16 · Score: 0

...of a kernel that doesn't actually work. Except on Stallman's PC.
1. Re:The longest kernel development history... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 14:52 · Score: 0
  
  Funny that this slow-moving GNU project is too slow to catch up with a GNU project on a hare-brained course: GNOME. GNOME's not going to be able to run on Hurd.
2. Re:The longest kernel development history... by deviated_prevert · 2013-09-27 15:08 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  ...of a kernel that doesn't actually work. Except on Stallman's PC.
  Stallman does not possess such devices he runs and developed emacs on a unix VM inside his brain! After realizing that all unix passwords and attempts to hide source code in a binary were useless. The concept of a conceptual computer without passwords and accessed only by obscure command macros written in C exploded from his mind and POOF we had emacs. This was then enhanced by interpreting the commands in binary form but it only worked for those who spoke with a lisp. Then all this went out the Windows when a stiff DOSe of source code was obscured by means of non standard compilers and suddenly word and data processing binaries could easily be obfuscated by hiding the source.
  Others tried to change this situation by judiciously applying rubber to source code and the resulting LateXT could be stretched into a usable FLEXable shape, at least until a Bison shat on the source. Stallman HURD about this change in how binaries were now being used and created and GNU for certain that he would have to come out of his brain and actually become the Kernel in charge of parsing things at the source. Because he still insists upon compiling source only in his brain before creating binaries the resulting OS kernel has been extremely slow to take shape because debugging it has given him nightmares whenever he actually sleeps in fact the that the sleep command causes instant dreams that bring him back to the Bill Gates rants he witnessed at computer club meetings in the 1970's.
  
  --
  This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
3. Re:The longest kernel development history... by unixisc · 2013-09-28 09:04 · Score: 1
  
  His PC doesn't run HURD - it runs gNewSense, a distro of what he calls 'Libre-Linux'
4. Re:The longest kernel development history... by unixisc · 2013-09-29 20:04 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, one good way of slowing down GNOME would be to ask that team to port it directly to HURD, w/o going through X or Wayland or anything else. In fact, build a display server directly into either HURD or GNOME. Preferably GNOME, since that would be quicker.
Time in unpredictable. by wjcofkc · 2013-09-27 14:17 · Score: 1

I've heard it said that time moves on and that maybe even Linux won't last forever. Wether or not that is true I Believe *nix in general will be around for a long long time yet. Fast forward a decade or two - despite Hurd and it's sllloowww.... development being a bit of a joke, wouldn't it be something if we are all actually using Hurd in the future? Stranger things have happened.

--
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
1. Re:Time in unpredictable. by icebike · 2013-09-27 14:27 · Score: 1
  
  Still, I'm not sure there was ever a 10 year gap between Linux releases.
  
  --
  Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
2. Re:Time in unpredictable. by aix+tom · 2013-09-27 22:09 · Score: 1
  
  In software there is always the chance of a "Dang, we have to re-write this thing from scratch" moment, when something becomes to cluttered an unmanageable.
  In such a moment ever happens to Linux (or another FOSS OS) they can always pick up things like HURD and go from there, if it fits their goals better than the thing that became to "wrong direction". With FOSS the chance of having someone or something "gone the first steps for fun" and getting picked up later by someone else is always there.
Proposal: by pseudofrog · 2013-09-27 14:18 · Score: 4, Funny

Fork a BSD variant, license it under the GPL, package it with GNU stuff, call it Hurd 1.0.
1. Re:Proposal: by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 14:31 · Score: 0
  
  They would still fuck that up, by trying to refactor it into their idea of a proper micro kernel.
2. Re:Proposal: by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 14:33 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  Who would want free BSD software relicensed under a shittier unfree license?
3. Re:Proposal: by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 15:16 · Score: 0
  
  Nah man, none of that monolithic kernel shit. It's all about micro kernels these days! (if these days were 20 years ago in the early 90's, lol)
4. Re:Proposal: by Boronx · 2013-09-27 15:22 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Mac users?
  
  --
  Play Command HQ online
5. Re:Proposal: by caseih · 2013-09-27 15:59 · Score: 0
  
  If I was making major changes and improvements to a BSD-licensed code base, I might very well want to relicence it under the GPL just to protect myself keep my code from being absconded by a proprietary product out there.
  If by less free you mean that someone is less free to rip the code off and make their own proprietary product around the code, then yes you are correct. If you mean free as in the users can freely access the source code and it will always remain in such a state, then the GPL is freer. All depends on which freedom you think is more important, especially when two freedoms conflict with one another.
6. Re:Proposal: by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 16:02 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Fork a BSD variant, license it under the GPL, package it with GNU stuff, call it Hurd 1.0.
  Just in case you (or anyone else who reads this) is really so ignorant of copyright law, it should be said that forking code that isn't your own does not suddenly turn you from a licensee into a licensor. You can't take a BSD operating system, remove the BSD license, and attach the GPL for at least two reasons: 1) the BSD license forbids distributing sources (or binaries) without a copy of the license (which is the BSD license itself), and 2) you are not the copyright owner of any part of the BSD operating system you took, so you simply have no authority to (re)license it. You are automatically the copyright owner of whatever you create, including any patches or additions to the BSD operating system, and you can license your own stuff however you wish -- you can even distribute your own stuff alongside the BSD operating system using whatever terms you like for your own stuff which isn't necessarily allowed by the GPL because liberal licenses are awesome like that -- but you certainly never have any right to relicense anything that isn't yours.
7. Re:Proposal: by kwerle · 2013-09-27 16:09 · Score: 2
  
  Oh SNAP! Nice one.
  (written from OSX...)
8. Re: Proposal: by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 19:24 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  I license my code under a BSD license, maybe my thought process can help elucidate why someone would do this:
  My code does what it says it does. If someone relicenses it, people can always get my source instead. If someone improves it beyond what I did and people want that persons software instead, he's obviously added value to it and I feel he's within his moral rights to license that code anyway he wishes. He did something with it that I was unable, unwilling or too obtuse to do myself and I'm more then happy to see that because it means better software on the long run.
  If you're familiar with RMS's essay on 'open source' people versus 'free software' people, I'm firmly in the open source camp. Its a development model that produces better software, not a moral crusade.
9. Re:Proposal: by smash · 2013-09-27 21:33 · Score: 1
  
  The core is still open source. The non-free proprietary bits of OS X have never been open source and were developed in house at NeXT / Apple.
  
  --
  I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
10. Re: Proposal: by Bert64 · 2013-09-27 21:48 · Score: 1
  
  At what percentage of "added value" does this thinking kick in?
  That is, if someone takes your code and adds improvements that make up say 5% of the codebase, then thats still predominantly your code and yet that person could be profiting from the entire package.
  
  --
  http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
11. Re: Proposal: by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 23:09 · Score: 1
  
  If someone takes my code changes 5% and makes money off it while my -5% version is free for anyone to download and peruse, then he has obviously got some nice skills to deserve it even if just at marketing. Why should I profit from his original work if he doesn't want to share it? If I wanted/were able to profit from my 95% don't you think I would have done it already?
12. Re: Proposal: by MikeBabcock · 2013-09-28 01:38 · Score: 1
  
  More importantly, as a user of person B's package, I have no ability to see those changes or how they achieved those upgrades and am stuck with the original source instead which lacks all those new features to work on my own improvements from.
  
  --
  - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
13. Re:Proposal: by Urkki · 2013-09-28 01:53 · Score: 1
  
  Who would want free BSD software relicensed under a shittier unfree license?
  Users of a fork or otherwise copied code, who would like to see the source.
  Developers, who see a bugfix or improvement of their code in a fork, and would like to merge that back to their codebase.
14. Re:Proposal: by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-28 02:52 · Score: 0
  
  The core is still open source. The non-free proprietary bits of OS X have never been open source and were developed in house at NeXT / Apple.
  Are those like the seeds inside the Apple core?
15. Re:Proposal: by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-28 04:40 · Score: 0
  
  Anyone who doesn't like the shittier dick in your ass license like BSD, which gives everyone the possibility to turn it unfree.
16. Re:Proposal: by unixisc · 2013-09-28 09:05 · Score: 1
  
  Fork a BSD variant, license it under the GPL, package it with GNU stuff, call it Hurd 1.0.
  I suggested that for the microkernel - just take Minix 3, which is BSDL, fork it, license that under GPL3, package it w/ the HURD services and Emacs, and then call it HURD 1.0
17. Re:Proposal: by caseih · 2013-09-28 10:08 · Score: 1
  
  It's a fine line here, though. I definitely can legally take your code that you released as BSD, extend or modify it, and release my version as GPL in its entirety. You still retain the copyright on your code, and of course someone could extract your code from my project and use it under the original BSD license. But I as a developer need not make much distinction.
  As for your claim the BSD requires the license to be distributed with the code, it doesn't actually say that (never uses the word, "license"). It says you must keep the copyright notice and "this list of conditions and the following disclaimer." The GPL actually satisfies all three of the conditions in the BSD. Copyright notice is maintained, the disclaimer of warranty is maintained, and the terms and conditions of the GPL are supersets of the BSD.
  So my reading, and the reading of the lawyers at the FSF is that yes, you may in fact relicense BSD code under the GPL (subject of course to what I said in the first paragraph).
18. Re:Proposal: by drfreak · 2013-09-28 12:36 · Score: 1
  
  If you mean free as in the users can freely access the source code and it will always remain in such a state, then the GPL is freer..
  Is that "freer" as in "beer"?
19. Re:Proposal: by drfreak · 2013-09-28 13:41 · Score: 1
  
  You must be new here. You forgot to add "Profit!"
Relevance? by dreamchaser · 2013-09-27 14:22 · Score: 2, Insightful

What exactly is relevant about Hurd now? The OS landscape has changed and people have moved on. This is really a non-story, aside from the humor value.
1. Re:Relevance? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 15:16 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  If that's how you think, you've chosen the wrong name. Maybe 'dreambasher' would be more appropriate.
  A small handful of technical people have a dream to make a viable microkernel operating system, and they're chasing their dream. Good for them.
2. Re:Relevance? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 15:56 · Score: 0
  
  Too bad we already have a viable microkernel OS. It's called XNU and it runs on a bazillion iPhones, iPads and Macs. Oh hay and here it is http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/xnu-2050.24.15/
  Evil closed Apple, etc
3. Re: Relevance? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 16:23 · Score: 0
  
  Just another thing Apple bought from an outsider. I remember the millions and millions that Apple spent on Pink/Taligent/Sagan(bha), etc. It all came to nothing, because Apple is a company that designs fancy cases and one button mice, and rigid interface guidelines. And especially, Marketing Plans.
4. Re: Relevance? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 17:41 · Score: 0
  
  Only trouble is the bit where they've confused their dream with their tail, and are now chasing it...
5. Re:Relevance? by jayrulez · 2013-09-27 18:09 · Score: 1
  
  XNU is not a microkernel.
6. Re:Relevance? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-28 00:50 · Score: 0
  
  It's a hybrid, calling it a microkernel isn't entirely wrong since the microkernel structure is there, it operates as a microkernel with the message passing and protected memory, only it is not invulnerable to faulty device drivers, that's the key part that makes is a hybrid and why it retains a similar speed to pure monolithic kernels.
7. Re: Relevance? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-28 00:57 · Score: 0
  
  How ignorant can you be in one post?.. The outsider was the whole of NeXT which was bought by Apple, and the founder of that "outsider" was the same co founder of Apple. You antiApple fanboys are as blind and pretentious as the Apple fanboys.
8. Re:Relevance? by hobarrera · 2013-09-28 05:24 · Score: 1
  
  "Moved on"? You make is sound as if Hurd was relevat once!
9. Re:Relevance? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-28 10:38 · Score: 0
  
  Your argument lends me to believe that you do not really know what goes on in XNU.
10. Re:Relevance? by dreamchaser · 2013-09-28 12:29 · Score: 1
  
  It could have been relevant, once. That was a long time ago thought.
11. Re:Relevance? by dreamchaser · 2013-09-28 12:30 · Score: 1
  
  Except it's been done already. It's cool that they are still chasing their dream, but it's hardly newsworthy now and not stuff that matters.
12. Re:Relevance? by Guy+Harris · 2013-09-29 07:42 · Score: 1
  
  It's a hybrid, calling it a microkernel isn't entirely wrong since the microkernel structure is there, it operates as a microkernel with the message passing and protected memory, only it is not invulnerable to faulty device drivers, that's the key part that makes is a hybrid and why it retains a similar speed to pure monolithic kernels.
  I.e., it's a microkernel except for the "privileged OS services are provided by user-mode server processes rather than by code running in kernel mode" part, which makes it not much more interestingly a microkernel than, say, any of the monolithic-kernel UN*Xes that, in some cases, send messages to a userland process for some services (e.g., automounter daemons).
When you do this as a hobby by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 14:22 · Score: 0

things tend to go slow. Real slow. If you want things now, now, now, pay the man/men. It is free, as in someone-else-will-do-it, so you get what you, that's right, didn't pay for.
1. Re:When you do this as a hobby by Guy+Harris · 2013-09-27 18:55 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  things tend to go slow. Real slow. If you want things now, now, now, pay the man/men. It is free, as in someone-else-will-do-it, so you get what you, that's right, didn't pay for.
  Fortunately, eventually people found this hobby project worth paying for, although I think it proved its worth before the big money started pouring in.
  There are, of course, some other hobby projects that also manage to support a little more hardware than the Hurd does without huge amounts of money poured into them.
GNU Hurd mobile? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 14:37 · Score: 0

I would love to see GNU Hurd ported to a mobile platform. Imagine how awesome it would be to run Hurd on a N900 or Nexus device. Mozilla saw the light and made a mobile OS, maybe its time for the GNU project?
1. Re:GNU Hurd mobile? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 14:43 · Score: 0
  
  Right... maybe that'll happen when Hurd is actually capable of doing anything useful. Yet another reason to detest the crowd wanting to prefix Linux with "GNU/". GNU obviously doesn't do kernels well. Don't pollute the name of Linux with that shit.
2. Re:GNU Hurd mobile? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 15:09 · Score: 0
  
  GNU/FuckYouMan!
3. Re:GNU Hurd mobile? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 15:29 · Score: 1
  
  You have to admit with the recent news of Cyanogenmod selling out, there is an opening in the phone market for a truly free OS not controlled by some mega-corp.
4. Re:GNU Hurd mobile? by MikeBabcock · 2013-09-28 01:40 · Score: 1
  
  Says who? Cyanogenmod taking money from the public is fantastic and means more time working on the project we love.
  
  --
  - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
5. Re:GNU Hurd mobile? by mr_mischief · 2013-09-28 09:38 · Score: 1
  
  I'm curious. How much time and money would using the goo.im updater save for work on other things?
I really hope it will run... by Nova+Express · 2013-09-27 14:45 · Score: 1

...on my PowerPC 620...

--
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
1. Re:I really hope it will run... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 18:15 · Score: 0
  
  Nope, i386 only.
2. Re:I really hope it will run... by Blaskowicz · 2013-09-27 20:15 · Score: 1
  
  Nope, the current plan is to support it on 68060.
Comment removed by account_deleted · 2013-09-27 14:48 · Score: 2

Comment removed based on user account deletion
From the NEWS file... by hpa · 2013-09-27 15:15 · Score: 1

IPv6 support in pfinet, based on Linux 2.2.14.
1. Re:From the NEWS file... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 15:44 · Score: 0
  
  It is still years ahead of actually needing IPv6 support.
2. Re:From the NEWS file... by smash · 2013-09-27 21:40 · Score: 1
  
  Oh cool, I'll try and source an old 3c509 or NE2000 (and a motherboard with ISA or PCI slots) for network support.
  
  --
  I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
3. Re:From the NEWS file... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-28 00:21 · Score: 0
  
  *woosh*
4. Re:From the NEWS file... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-28 04:02 · Score: 0
  
  Oh cool, I'll try and source an old 3c509 or NE2000 (and a motherboard with ISA or PCI slots) for network support.
  I'll have you know my home firewall machine has an ISA ne2k on the cable modem side, I've still got a couple of others in an old Pentium 133 up in the loft somewhere as spares, as for the 3c509, pulled one of them from another machine at work just last week and am keeping it as a spare for a machine there which has been running with one of these for something like 8 years.
  I'd rather have my decade++ old ne2k for all its known faults handling my network traffic than, for example, the Realtek dreck that passes for NICs I've encountered recently (I wondered why a number of systems I've had the misfortune to get in at work had one of their slots populated with various Intel NICs when the Motherboards had onboard Realtek NICs, needless to say, after removing the Intel cards, and discovering that even under Windows (XP..8) the damnable Realtek things will stop working for no good reason I soon saw the light there).
5. Re:From the NEWS file... by Anomalyst · 2013-09-28 07:00 · Score: 1
  
  Remeber, most 3c509b drivers will NOT work with the 3c509c,something about removing the way most drivers pulled the data from the card.
  
  --
  There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
6. Re:From the NEWS file... by smash · 2013-09-28 17:06 · Score: 1
  
  Cool story bro. I prefer to buy hardware with a warranty and support for important things. And yes, friends don't let friends buy realtek NICs.
  
  --
  I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
I'm not a fan of Agile, but by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 15:27 · Score: 1

30 years to get to v0.5? Time to adopt Scrum.
1. Re: I'm not a fan of Agile, but by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 19:02 · Score: 0
  
  Go die in an fire!
Stalling... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 16:19 · Score: 1

I love the idea of GNU Hurd but it's just not progressing like it should.
Does anyone know why this project is stalling so much?
1. Re:Stalling... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 17:10 · Score: 0
  
  No one is paying developers to work on it.
2. Re:Stalling... by aardvarkjoe · 2013-09-27 17:34 · Score: 1
  
  Does anyone know why this project is stalling so much?
  Because there's no strong need for it to be completed. It's progressing the same way as any number of hobbyist open source projects.
  
  --
  
  How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
3. Re:Stalling... by jandrese · 2013-09-27 17:52 · Score: 1
  
  Because it has basically only a single developer (Stallman himself), and he has a bad case of Carpel Tunnel so to write it he has to dictate every character to some poor intern that then quits because that's an impossible way to develop a project.
  
  --
  
  I read the internet for the articles.
4. Re:Stalling... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 19:32 · Score: 0
  
  That's actually not true. Stallman is not involved in HURD development. He is only doing promo and talks these days.
5. Re:Stalling... by Bitmanhome · 2013-09-27 20:26 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Does anyone know why this project is stalling so much?
  Cuz it's run by a Stall-man?
  
  --
  Not that this wasn't entirely predictable.
6. Re:Stalling... by smash · 2013-09-27 21:41 · Score: 1
  
  Because both Linux and xBSD already exist, are stable, and have far better performance, hardware compatibility and real world testing.
  
  --
  I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
7. Re:Stalling... by dbIII · 2013-09-27 22:42 · Score: 1
  
  Management style. If you want to contribute it's as if they'll ask you where you got your doctorate in CS in, and even if it's the same place as somebody already involved they'll then ask what year then reject you.
  IMHO that's why linux took off and hurd didn't. Linus would take any code that looked like it would fit from anyone that wanted to send it in, then sorted out the rough edges with the help of what became a huge number of people.
8. Re:Stalling... by otuz · 2013-09-28 00:07 · Score: 1
  
  Because there's already an awesome open-source Mach kernel out there: XNU, and it ships with most Apple devices.
9. Re:Stalling... by iggymanz · 2013-09-28 02:01 · Score: 1
  
  no, show me a hobbyist open source project that went 27 years with nothing usable.
  Even Perl 6 hasn't yet sunk to those depths, though it is passing downward to the ocean floor much like a broken Titanic
10. Re:Stalling... by aardvarkjoe · 2013-09-28 04:14 · Score: 1
  
  no, show me a hobbyist open source project that went 27 years with nothing usable.
  Head over to sourceforge and start clicking on random projects. Half-finished projects with minimal practical use are common. The only real difference is that the Hurd gets lots of press despite its state.
  
  --
  
  How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
11. Re:Stalling... by unixisc · 2013-09-28 09:13 · Score: 1
  
  Not only that, RMS no longer endorses HURD - he switched to trying to rebrand Linux as GNU/Linux a long time ago
12. Re:Stalling... by mr_mischief · 2013-09-28 09:43 · Score: 2
  
  Perl 6 makes progress. It's slow, but it's fairly steady. There has never been a one-year gap in packages, let alone ten years. One of the compilers, Rakudo, is nearly feature complete and then just needs to be optimized. It has monthly releases.
13. Re:Stalling... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-28 23:03 · Score: 0
  
  > Does anyone know why this project is stalling so much?
  "There's a stalllllmaaaaan waiting in the sky..."
14. Re:Stalling... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-29 21:10 · Score: 0
  
  The difference to HURD is that sourceforge projects, no one is working on them. But people has been working on HURD for a long time. They dont give up! :)
Microkernel by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 16:21 · Score: 0

What does GNU Hurd have that Minix 3 does not? They are both microkernels except Minix 3 looks more mature. I wonder if there will be a debian port.
1. Re:Microkernel by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 16:50 · Score: 0
  
  The Free Software Foundation itself identifies the BSD license as an acceptable Free license:
  https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html
2. Re:Microkernel by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 17:59 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  What does GNU Hurd have that Minix 3 does not? They are both microkernels except Minix 3 looks more mature.
  GNU Hurd uses a sane license. Minix 3 uses a BSD license, which is unfree.
  That's hilarious. (I don't mean just the bit where, like so many FSF fanboys, but not RMS, you can't grasp the difference between "Free" and "Copyleft"; I mean the argument as a whole.)
  So HURD's only benefit (that you can think of) is that if some evil company wants to take a microkernel-based UNIX-like, make their changes, and distribute the result without source... they'll be forced to go with Minix 3 (the one that GP says "looks more mature", which you don't seem to dispute) instead of HURD (which you can't or won't explain any technical benefit of)? Yeah, I think they'll just go with Minix 3, same as they would no matter how you licensed HURD.
3. Re:Microkernel by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 19:20 · Score: 1
  
  It's the other way around.
  Minix3 is a Pure Microkernel Multiserver system, using a custom microkernel. The kernel is small and everything else runs contained in userspace processes.
  HURD is a hybrid system, which means drivers run in kernelspace, negating most of the benefits of using a microkernel in the first place. This is a consequence of using Mach, which has severe performance issues which pretty much exclude its use on a pure microkernel architecture system.
  Other Mach-based systems such as Darwin (used on OSX and IOS) are also hybrids, for the same reasons.
  But Mach is pretty much an ancient, archaic microkernel. L4 showed the world that the whole microkernel thing can be done in a reasonably efficient manner.
4. Re:Microkernel by fnj · 2013-09-28 02:03 · Score: 1
  
  BSD license, which is unfree
  Bullshit. It's as free as it gets. It's the definition of free. You can do anything with BSD material, including proprietize derived works. That conflicts with some people's concept of subsuming derivative work and making it as open as the original free bits, but that doesn't allow redefining "free" as "free, and forcing yours to be free, too".
5. Re:Microkernel by fnj · 2013-09-28 02:07 · Score: 1
  
  And if Mach's architecture entailed a high overhead on a 16 MHz single core 16020, it would be utterly negligible on today's 3 GHz four core CPU.
Re:In a seperate announcement by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 16:24 · Score: 0

HURD will be paired with the Unity GUI and renamed Caldera OpenLinux to make HURD the most popular distro ever!
I had OpenLinux it was a pretty good distribution.
theory vs. practice by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 16:40 · Score: 0

Theory says that Hurd's approach should be orders of magnitude faster to develop, since it's so modular and therefore more amenable to unit testing.
The only two plausible explanations I can come up with are (1) that he's dragging his feet because he's afraid of having to live long enough to support his creation, and/or (2) that he vastly over-estimated the performance of his rough draft code == he had assumed it would fast enough to and draw more lookie-loos to help him code the rest of it (read: do all the real work for him, so he can take all the credit).
Have you HURD? by skaralic · 2013-09-27 17:29 · Score: 1

It was my understanding that everyone had HURD...
1. Re:Have you HURD? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 19:11 · Score: 0
  
  Hurd *is* the word.
2. Re:Have you HURD? by smallfries · 2013-09-27 21:17 · Score: 1
  
  Are you referring to the recent news of an avian variety?
  
  --
  Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
3. Re:Have you HURD? by 3dr · 2013-09-28 08:25 · Score: 1
  
  Oh, perhaps of a certain ornithological topic.
what is the point by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 18:04 · Score: 0

is there some great features with it?
Hurd? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 18:16 · Score: 0

Yeah, I bet they "fixed" the random number generator...
You're kinda right... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 19:00 · Score: 1

You have to include the original copyright notice and the terms that pertain to that code. But you can certainly distribute BSD code within/alongside your own code under your own license. That's kinda the point of the BSD license.

Just sprinkle few patches throughout the codebase that are difficult to strip out, and your new project becomes de facto GPL.
unix desktop by Nick · 2013-09-27 20:25 · Score: 0

The *nix desktop is still a p.o.s. since i've been around here.

--
Fuck Ajit Pai
1. Re:unix desktop by Nick · 2013-09-28 13:02 · Score: 1
  
  not sure why this got modded down. Has anyone ever tried to setting up three monitors? I recently converted my workstation from Windows which worked quite well for gaming and multi-monitor support. On-board nvidia gpu had one monitor and the amd/ati pci card connected the other two. Can't do that under X. So now I'll have to buy another PCI card. But wait, commercial drivers are buggy and Xscreensaver is a mess, I can't use text virtual consoles, but I use open source drivers which fixes that, steam wont run. Running Ubuntu? Having the fear of god every time a system update or reboot is not ideal, but about half the time something bad will happen. BSD? nothing is written for it. I've been running X in some form on some machine since the early 90s on a 386. For a while, the unix desktop was the way to go, but for years Windows or OS X is vastly superior in a desktop environment - you know, actual drivers exist. Thank god for virtualbox at least.
  
  --
  Fuck Ajit Pai
Hurd needs a major restructure by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 20:59 · Score: 0

Both from a project point of view, and technically.
30 years, and no production quality code.
Mach is technically obsolete now. Nobody would want to base anything on the sluggish Mach design now, particularly the performance disaster that was Mach 3.0.
The Mach project was successful in a way. It proved that it very difficult to implement a working microkernel design, that has good performance. In fact, today, only QNX appears to have achieved anything close, and it doesn't put filesystem / device I/O in the microkernel.
i wonder which will be production ready first by Chrisq · 2013-09-27 22:08 · Score: 1

Gnu Hurd or Minix 3
1. Re:i wonder which will be production ready first by unixisc · 2013-09-28 09:19 · Score: 1
  
  I thought Minix 3.4 is already ready. It has Minix at the bottom, and NetBSD userland.
2. Re:i wonder which will be production ready first by Chrisq · 2013-09-29 04:37 · Score: 1
  
  I thought Minix 3.4 is already ready. It has Minix at the bottom, and NetBSD userland.
  you must have jumped ahead, they are at 3.2.1 and it has very limited software and hardware support
Because the Mach approach still doesn't work well by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-27 22:34 · Score: 1

And never has. Apple got a Mach *based* kernel working by having complete hardware control and not having to develop drivers for alternative hardware. The Linux, kernel, and BSD kernels that are atually in use on broad sets of kernels, accepted the risk of having the drivers inside the kernel so that they could get them to actually *work*.
Hurd may have been a failure by nurb432 · 2013-09-28 00:15 · Score: 1

As a 'product' it may be a dismal failure, but the work getting to it has clearly been not and we every day enjoy the 'collateral successes'.
For all his faults, RMS did help the 'movement' in incalculable ways.

--
---- Booth was a patriot ----
1. Re:Hurd may have been a failure by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-28 03:15 · Score: 0
  
  Agreed, the Hurd project positively affects the ecosystem surrounding it. E.g. it makes glaciers, snails and molasses go visibly faster
Release early, release often by benjfowler · 2013-09-28 00:34 · Score: 1

That's how we roll.
Re:In a seperate announcement by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-28 01:20 · Score: 0

You're wrong about the name, though. I have it from very good source that it is called Turbo SuSiva.
Re:Because the Mach approach still doesn't work we by fnj · 2013-09-28 02:11 · Score: 1

And never has. Apple got a Mach *based* kernel working by having complete hardware control and not having to develop drivers for alternative hardware. The Linux, kernel, and BSD kernels that are atually in use on broad sets of kernels, accepted the risk of having the drivers inside the kernel so that they could get them to actually *work*.
And why, pray tell, is developing reliable drivers for a microkernel more difficult than for a monolithic kernel? Logic would dictate entirely the reverse.
He has the source right? by ArchieBunker · 2013-09-28 04:13 · Score: 1

Why should he be worried since he has the source code? Another bombshell for you guys. His systems did not even have passwords until an untrustworthy worker started fucking around.

--
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
New Term: RMSDS - RMS Derangement Syndrome by Tetetrasaurus · 2013-09-28 07:24 · Score: 0

Looking at all the downright vitriolic anti-RMS, anti-GPL, anit-Libre comments here, it is clear that a solid tiny activist subset of longtime slashdotters suffer from RMSDS, as well as GPLDS, or GPL Derangement Syndrome, or even GNU Not Unix Derangement Syndrome, or GNUDS.
Just goes to show, try to do something to help the world and be successful, and there will always be a few people that will tear you down and claim you've done nothing or the opposite, regardless.
Happy Birthday GNU, thank you for improving the world for all. Please keep developing and contributing.
Comment removed by account_deleted · 2013-09-28 07:35 · Score: 1

Comment removed based on user account deletion
Re:In a seperate announcement by unixisc · 2013-09-28 09:12 · Score: 1

Actually, the perfect pure GNU system - HURD on an Itanium (or a real VLIW CPU), w/ Emacs on top of it as well as GNOME 3. Only impurity here - X11, which isn't GPL3. Maybe they can try and do a GPL variation of either X11 or Wayland or Mir, whichever they prefer.
Re:Because the Mach approach still doesn't work we by Guy+Harris · 2013-09-29 07:51 · Score: 1

And never has. Apple got a Mach *based* kernel working by having complete hardware control and not having to develop drivers for alternative hardware.
...and by running drivers for network and storage devices, and the network protocol and file system code that uses them, in kernel mode.