"Seriously, is there anyone who doesn't think this is either a precursor to military action, or a direct attack on Iran's about-to-launch Euro-based oil market?" Yes they are called sane. This would be a DUMB precursor to military action. A lot of the countries served by that cable are allies like Egypt so it would tend to hurt as much as help. Second you wouldn't want to telegraph your actions like this. Third a much better solution would be to take out the connections with cruise missiles or JDAMS in Iran. That way you only hit Iran. A euro based oil market... Maybe but that seems so clumsy, cutting the lines now is just dumb. If the Irainans are anything but stupid they will have a satellite backup data link probably through China or Russia and a back up fiber optic cable through Russia as well.
In other words you are going with the LEAST likely cause.
I will probably wait for a while before I update but this looks great. HOT and the full text search are two features that I could use. Postgres is a good reliable database server. I just wish more projects supported it as an equal to MySQL.
This is not some theory buddy it is fact! It all started when they put fluoride in our water! Next came barcodes to track everything we buy. Then came RFID tags in our money so even if we pay cash we are tracked. Now they are going to put RFID tags in our clothes which will be the real mark of the beast.
Yes I am kidding. I had to put that in because I just realized that I couldn't make up anything dumber than what I have read on the internet.
"Yes, you can. It's all just software in the end." No you can't I used the term Host and not run. Hurd doesn't virtualize hardware so it can not host a foreign OS. Since I was speaking in the present tense the statment is true. As far as I know there is no software that does virtualization available for Hurd. If you wanted to run a foreign OS on Hurd currently you would probably be limited to using an emulator like QUEMM.
I do tend to agree with you about the value of Linus' opinion in this matter. I do think he is correct for the simple reason that IBM is pushing Linux. When it comes to patent's IBM pretty much is the expert. Microsoft's patents are more valuable to them as a treat than if they where used. The have seen the SCO case and the last thing they want is for there patents to be tossed out as obvious. It would weaken them and could bring down the EU on them. It is far better to let them hang out in the dark and be an unknown threat than to be show as a paper tiger in court. Of course if they get pushed into a corner then all bets are off.
Actually probably pretty dang happy. I can not imagine my church holding a SuperBowl party. It is Sunday for goodness sakes. I just don't find the Superbowl to be spiritually uplifting.
The best part is that yo yo got a five for it. Of course everybody and there dog knows that the Jimmy Carter was modified for underwater OP so no whistle blower needed there. The goal of taping and underwater cable is to do it without anyone knowing that you did it. So even if you where going to break the cable you wouldn't do all of them at once. But the best part is that the cable lands in Europe. Any of the countries that it lands at would probably be happy to let the US sniff the cable if we let them share the data. Also Egypt has more to loose from Islamic extremists than most countries and they are a pretty good friend to the US. Want to bet that they would let us tap those cables as well? Sounds more likely to be fundamentalist trying to cut the Middle East off from porn, western news, and entertainment.
"That this operation was carried out on the submarine named after the president who did the most to reduce spying on civilian targets shows just how petty and spiteful the professional privacy violators in the NSA are." Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha..... Sorry. The Jimmy Carter is the last of the Seawolf class submarines. The newer Virgina class is actually lower tech and cost than the Seawolf. They named it the Jimmy Carter because he served on Nuclear Submarines. It was named in his honor. it was modified for spying because it was the best for the job and the last available. Since he launched it and said what an honor it was to have it named after him all I can say is. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.... ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...... Really..
Simple... Don't embarrass yourself in public. I was at a talk that a Pro Football player was giving to some kids about making good choices. BTW this guy wasn't doing court ordered community service and never has. He told the kids that the teams have a bunch of experts that try and help the player not do stupid things. This expert was a gun expert. He listed all the times where it would be a bad time to carry your gun. One of the players asked, "Whe is a good time to carry your gun?" The expert said, "If you are going into any situation where having a gun is a good idea not going into that situation to start with is a better idea."
So if you don't want pictures of you at a party with drunk transvestites then don't go to a party with drunk transvestites. Even a "private" party is a public place.
It is an issue for new projects. If you are going to start a project today do you use python 2.x or wait for python 3.x? Someday one of them well go bye bye and somebody will have to fix the problems that causes. What if you are going to embed python into an application as a macro language? No the sky isn't falling. The sky never rarely does fall. But it is an issue.
Not at all. I did read it all. Minix-3 is still very new. It deserves to get ALOT of attention because it is one of the most interesting FOSS projects out there right now.
Right now with Linux what happens if you have an exploit in a device driver? You have an exploit in the Kernel. Right now if you have a crash in a Device driver what happens? You have a Kernel panic.
So a bad serial port, printer, or webcam will take out a server. Witn Minix if a device driver crashes the os will take a debug snapshot and then restart the device driver. You can not do that with a monolithic kernel. Linux depends on every device driver and a lot of other code to be bug free. The idea behind Minix3 and all Microkernels is that the few lines of code you have in the kernel the few bugs you have in the kernel. The basic idea is to reduce the number of critical lines of code to a bare minimum.
Minix3 is trying to do something that Linux just can't. It is trying to be self healing. Linux is a very reliable OS as it is but it still can not and can never handle a device driver crash. Minix is trying to create an ever more stable and reliable OS that can.
Your post was just so clueless about the goals of Minix, what a Microkernel is, what a Hypervisor is, HURD is, and what Linux is that I just had to post. The truth is that none of it would have been so bad if you hadn't had the shear arrogance to suggest that you knew what Tanenbaum should be doing to help more than he did.
Maybe you should look at some of the design features of Minix-3 Reduce kernel size
Reduce Kernel Size Monolithic operating systems (e.g., Windows, Linux, BSD) have millions of lines of kernel code. There is no way so much code can ever be made correct. In contrast, MINIX 3 has about 4000 lines of executable kernel code. We believe this code can eventually be made fairly close to bug free.
Cage the bugs In monolithic operating systems, device drivers reside in the kernel. This means that when a new peripheral is installed, unknown, untrusted code is inserted in the kernel. A single bad line of code in a driver can bring down the system. In MINIX 3, each device driver is a separate user-mode process. Drivers cannot execute privileged instructions, change the page tables, perform I/O, or write to absolute memory. They have to make kernel calls for these services and the kernel checks each call for authority.
Limit drivers' memory access In monolithic operating systems, a driver can write to any word of memory and thus accidentally trash user programs. In MINIX 3, when a user expects data from, for example, the file system, it builds a descriptor telling who has access and at what addresses. It then passes an index to this descriptor to the file system, which may pass it to a driver. The file system or driver then asks the kernel to write via the descriptor, making it impossible for them to write to addresses outside the buffer.
Survive bad pointers Dereferencing a bad pointer within a driver will crash the driver process, but will have no effect on the system as a whole. The reincarnation server will restart the crashed driver automatically. For some drivers (e.g., disk and network) recovery is transparent to user processes. For others (e.g., audio and printer), the user may notice. In monolithic systems, dereferencing a bad pointer in a (kernel) driver normally leads to a system crash.
Tame infinite loops If a driver gets into an infinite loop, the scheduler will gradually lower its priority until it becomes the idle process. Eventually the reincarnation server will see that it is not responding to status requests, so it will kill and restart the looping driver. In a monolithic system, a looping driver could hang the system.
Limit damage from buffer overruns MINIX 3 uses fixed-length messages for internal communication, which eliminates certain buffer overruns and buffer management problems. Also, many exploits work by overrunning a buffer to trick the progr
Thank you but I don't consider myself to have anything but the most basic knowledge of CS. I am an applications programmer. I have fixed a Linux device driver once. I have read a few OS design books when I was younger and that is about it. That is what is so scary. The parent post makes me look like a freaking expert!
That really isn't possible. If you created say a new Webcam and you wrote a driver for it the best path would be. Make the driver FOSS and submit it to be added to the Kernel. The problem is you will have to wait until it is included in the kernel and then wait for the distros to adopt that version of the kernel. Putting the driver on the CD or the internet isn't a great solution because the driver binary interface can and does change so there is good chance that the driver you include will not work. You could include the source but then you will have to provide someway for end user to compile the driver. Not exactly a simple thing to make easy. Yes I know how to run make and download libs but my mother might find gcc to be a little less than friendly. So the end result is you new super wiz bang webcam can not be shipped until... Well that is out of your control.
This is where the lack of a binary driver interface is a problem.
It may be a fine instructional OS. Great! That's awesome. I applaud it and have no qualms promoting it in that realm. Beautiful."
Not really Minix 3 isn't trying a microkernel verison of Linux it is trying to be a more secure and reliable POSIX operating system. It uses a microkernel design to achieve things like self healing and security. Adding those features to Linux would a complete rewrite of Linux.
"If my info on GNU/Hurd was invalid, then I stand corrected. I assumed that Hurd was the microkernel with Linux (usually Debian) on top. I should have been clearer about that."
You info is wrong and no it doesn't run Linux on top, and no you can't be clearer because that statment is totally wrong.
"It's conceptually similar, in many ways, to Xen's hypervisor." No it isn't. Xen is a hypervisor it isn't a microkernel. You could host Hurd and or Minx 3 on Xen but you can't host Xen on Minx 3 or Hurd. You don't take an OS and just run it as a service under an microkernel and a hypervisor by it's self doesn't run applications like a microkernal OS does. The only way that they are similar is that they are small compact bits of code the provide some type of abstraction of the underlining hardware.
"In both cases, Linux isn't the only OS to be hostable on Hurd." You don't host any OS on Hurd. You can create servers that offer the same services as a specific OS. Much like Wine does under Linux.
"On the other hand, Tanenbaum isn't making apples to apples comparisons, otherwise why not take Vista to task, at the same time? Linux is nothing like Minix, so why compare the two in this way? Why not go after Solaris and others, as well?" Did you read the article? He wasn't comparing Linux to Minix 3 at all. He didn't go after any one. And yes he was critical of all current Operating Systems.
"Better yet, make a super cool microkernel for Linux, support Xen-style hypervisors, or something. In other words, don't just complain, do something useful, to help out."
Um.. Gee let's see he is working a POSIX operating system with the goals of making it secure and self healing.... Yea that is so useless. Just for kicks what OS or significant piece of FOSS have you written? How have you helped?
So you have written a lot with NO UNDERSTANDING of what you are talking about. I want some new options for moderation just for posts like this. +5 Ignorant +5 Arrogant!
Before you start telling Tanenbaum what he should do to be usful you need to learn the difference between a Hypervisor and a Microkernel, the difference between Hurd and Linux, and the difference between someone with an actual education in Computer Science and yourself. Might I suggest you pick up Tanenbaum's text book? It was of great help to Linus.
So what you are saying is that bad security is good for the user? Microkernel doesn't mean DRM. BTW Vista isn't a microkernel and it seems to have a ton of DRM. All it takes is signed drivers and an MMU to make DRM just about as secure on a monolithic kernel as a microkernel. So that really isn't an issue.
Actually the Atari 400/800 was a competitor to the AppleII. It was a better gaming machine. The C-64 was was a competitor to the Apple II+ and Apple IIe. The Apple IIGS competed with the Commodore 128, the Amiga, and the Atari ST.
Which was better between the 128 and IIgs? That is a really hard fight. The IIgs was really a 16bit mutant AppleII. It had a lot of features of the Mac thrown in. It had great sound but it was expensive. The 128 had good sound, good graphics, 80 column text, it could run a mind numbing amount of software since it ran all the C-64 software. It's own native software, and CP/M. Had it come out in 1982 it would have been huge.
The AppleII was great for two big reasons. 1. It had slots. 2. It was super well documented. So it was easy two write software and build hardware for it. It was well loved and one of many great machines of it's day.
Over all I do agree with you. I have never been into being in too one solution is always the right solution. Performance is really becoming less and less of an issue but I can see how some device drivers might need to be in the kernel for performance reasons. As was in the article why should a bad scanner, printer, or mouse driver crash a system? I am not even saying that Microkernels are the best solution. I am just saying that to dismiss the comments of a man that really did write the book on OS design is just dumb.
QNX is relevant. Is it popular on the desktop? Not really but then you could say is BSD relevant? Is it popular on the desktop compared to Windows, MacOS/X or even Linux? Is Linux relevant on the desktop? If you don't count duel boot machines how many Linux desktops are out there?
"Although microkernel OSs may be "nicer" from a design point of view, on the practical side the monolithical ones are serving us very well." I have heard that argument before except it was about Unix. MS-DOS was so much faster and used less ram and drive space than Unix did. To just dismiss microkernels because monolithic kernels are good enough is silly.
Actually Linux is starting to take some ideas from Microkernals. FUSE is a Microkernel idea. Moving more device drivers into userspace is also a very good idea. It means that security issues with a driver are less likely to root the OS or take out the OS with a crash. Stablity and security are important aren't they?
But back to your comment yes QNX is relevant. It is relevant because it proves that you can have a small, fast, and stable microkernal OS.
I trust Google will not let us down. They are just waiting to see if they can get it for 4.6 instead of 4.7 Billion. And then when they get it they will build out a solar powered wireless network that will offer broadband everywhere. Not only that it will be free and be faster than FIOS. It will be IPv6 so every user can have their own block of static IPs and it will smell like home made cookies and be as warm as a puppy. Yea that is it.
Yep I had a friend that got a new motherboard for her PC. She tried to install and it just wouldn't work. She then found that it was missing a bunch of drivers so she had to take her orignal CD download a bunch of files and then create a new CD just to get it installed... Oh wait that was Windows XP and she had to find out how to slipstream SP2 just to get it installed...
If you try to install an OS your self on to a PC you will probably have some hardware issues that you might have to figure out. Doesn't matter if it is Linux or Windows.
". We're all anarchists here, right?" Afraid not. As one guy pointed out. All you have to do look at any MMOG or USENET to see that Libertarianism will not work. Some where between the Nanny from cradle to grave of Marx, the "Free Enterpise" of Ayn Rand, Libertarianism, and anarchy lies the best system.
Well that is Cessna doing that. I really don't like it but since I was born in Vero Beach FL I was taught from childhood that Cessna was Evil:) A lot of the new LSA's are coming from the EU. Not what I really want but not terrible. I would love for Piper to create and LSA and build it in Vero, Lakeland, or even open up a factory in Idaho, Kansas, or some other place in the US. There are a lot of places in the US that are cheap to live and could really benefit from something like that. I don't think it will happen. Piper is still struggling Cessna is now part of the Textron Megacorp so they have deep pockets. Piper right now is betting big on the new PiperJet. We will see what will happen. BTW when I was a kid we would drive by Piper and see row after row of new Tomahawks, Arrows, Warriors, and Lances. Now when I go home to visit you might see one or two new planes coming out of the paint shop.
Sorry but it is bad business to let employees get hurt. If you get hurt on the job you can sue the daylights out of them. The company looses an employee. Frankly good workers are hard to get. I have been the one doing the interviewing and sometimes you just take what you can get and hope for the best. I sure wouldn't want to have any of my good people hurt. Again if you are in an unsafe work place I say leave if the boss will not fix it. If they are that short sighted then even a union will not keep the place running when he blows it.
Slashdot Mirror
"Seriously, is there anyone who doesn't think this is either a precursor to military action, or a direct attack on Iran's about-to-launch Euro-based oil market?"
Yes they are called sane.
This would be a DUMB precursor to military action. A lot of the countries served by that cable are allies like Egypt so it would tend to hurt as much as help.
Second you wouldn't want to telegraph your actions like this.
Third a much better solution would be to take out the connections with cruise missiles or JDAMS in Iran. That way you only hit Iran.
A euro based oil market... Maybe but that seems so clumsy, cutting the lines now is just dumb. If the Irainans are anything but stupid they will have a satellite backup data link probably through China or Russia and a back up fiber optic cable through Russia as well.
In other words you are going with the LEAST likely cause.
I will probably wait for a while before I update but this looks great.
HOT and the full text search are two features that I could use.
Postgres is a good reliable database server. I just wish more projects supported it as an equal to MySQL.
My bad I thought that Digg got bought for a few million by Yahoo back when Yahoo was buying everything.
Must have confused it with Flicker.
fliker, Digg, are two big ones.
maps.yahoo.com are pretty nice and I use my.yahoo.com for my home page.
With adaware it is a nice page.
This is not some theory buddy it is fact! It all started when they put fluoride in our water! Next came barcodes to track everything we buy. Then came RFID tags in our money so even if we pay cash we are tracked. Now they are going to put RFID tags in our clothes which will be the real mark of the beast.
Yes I am kidding. I had to put that in because I just realized that I couldn't make up anything dumber than what I have read on the internet.
"Yes, you can. It's all just software in the end."
No you can't I used the term Host and not run. Hurd doesn't virtualize hardware so it can not host a foreign OS. Since I was speaking in the present tense the statment is true. As far as I know there is no software that does virtualization available for Hurd. If you wanted to run a foreign OS on Hurd currently you would probably be limited to using an emulator like QUEMM.
I do tend to agree with you about the value of Linus' opinion in this matter. I do think he is correct for the simple reason that IBM is pushing Linux. When it comes to patent's IBM pretty much is the expert. Microsoft's patents are more valuable to them as a treat than if they where used. The have seen the SCO case and the last thing they want is for there patents to be tossed out as obvious. It would weaken them and could bring down the EU on them.
It is far better to let them hang out in the dark and be an unknown threat than to be show as a paper tiger in court.
Of course if they get pushed into a corner then all bets are off.
Actually probably pretty dang happy. I can not imagine my church holding a SuperBowl party. It is Sunday for goodness sakes. I just don't find the Superbowl to be spiritually uplifting.
The best part is that yo yo got a five for it.
Of course everybody and there dog knows that the Jimmy Carter was modified for underwater OP so no whistle blower needed there. The goal of taping and underwater cable is to do it without anyone knowing that you did it. So even if you where going to break the cable you wouldn't do all of them at once.
But the best part is that the cable lands in Europe. Any of the countries that it lands at would probably be happy to let the US sniff the cable if we let them share the data.
Also Egypt has more to loose from Islamic extremists than most countries and they are a pretty good friend to the US. Want to bet that they would let us tap those cables as well?
Sounds more likely to be fundamentalist trying to cut the Middle East off from porn, western news, and entertainment.
"That this operation was carried out on the submarine named after the president who did the most to reduce spying on civilian targets shows just how petty and spiteful the professional privacy violators in the NSA are."
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.....
Sorry.
The Jimmy Carter is the last of the Seawolf class submarines. The newer Virgina class is actually lower tech and cost than the Seawolf.
They named it the Jimmy Carter because he served on Nuclear Submarines. It was named in his honor. it was modified for spying because it was the best for the job and the last available.
Since he launched it and said what an honor it was to have it named after him all I can say is.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.... ha ha ha ha ha ha ha......
Really..
Simple...
Don't embarrass yourself in public.
I was at a talk that a Pro Football player was giving to some kids about making good choices. BTW this guy wasn't doing court ordered community service and never has.
He told the kids that the teams have a bunch of experts that try and help the player not do stupid things. This expert was a gun expert. He listed all the times where it would be a bad time to carry your gun. One of the players asked, "Whe is a good time to carry your gun?" The expert said, "If you are going into any situation where having a gun is a good idea not going into that situation to start with is a better idea."
So if you don't want pictures of you at a party with drunk transvestites then don't go to a party with drunk transvestites.
Even a "private" party is a public place.
It is an issue for new projects.
If you are going to start a project today do you use python 2.x or wait for python 3.x?
Someday one of them well go bye bye and somebody will have to fix the problems that causes.
What if you are going to embed python into an application as a macro language?
No the sky isn't falling. The sky never rarely does fall. But it is an issue.
Not at all. I did read it all.
Minix-3 is still very new. It deserves to get ALOT of attention because it is one of the most interesting FOSS projects out there right now.
Right now with Linux what happens if you have an exploit in a device driver?
You have an exploit in the Kernel.
Right now if you have a crash in a Device driver what happens?
You have a Kernel panic.
So a bad serial port, printer, or webcam will take out a server.
Witn Minix if a device driver crashes the os will take a debug snapshot and then restart the device driver. You can not do that with a monolithic kernel. Linux depends on every device driver and a lot of other code to be bug free.
The idea behind Minix3 and all Microkernels is that the few lines of code you have in the kernel the few bugs you have in the kernel. The basic idea is to reduce the number of critical lines of code to a bare minimum.
Minix3 is trying to do something that Linux just can't. It is trying to be self healing. Linux is a very reliable OS as it is but it still can not and can never handle a device driver crash.
Minix is trying to create an ever more stable and reliable OS that can.
Your post was just so clueless about the goals of Minix, what a Microkernel is, what a Hypervisor is, HURD is, and what Linux is that I just had to post. The truth is that none of it would have been so bad if you hadn't had the shear arrogance to suggest that you knew what Tanenbaum should be doing to help more than he did.
Maybe you should look at some of the design features of Minix-3
Reduce kernel size
Reduce Kernel Size
Monolithic operating systems (e.g., Windows, Linux, BSD) have millions of lines of kernel code. There is no way so much code can ever be made correct. In contrast, MINIX 3 has about 4000 lines of executable kernel code. We believe this code can eventually be made fairly close to bug free.
Cage the bugs
In monolithic operating systems, device drivers reside in the kernel. This means that when a new peripheral is installed, unknown, untrusted code is inserted in the kernel. A single bad line of code in a driver can bring down the system. In MINIX 3, each device driver is a separate user-mode process. Drivers cannot execute privileged instructions, change the page tables, perform I/O, or write to absolute memory. They have to make kernel calls for these services and the kernel checks each call for authority.
Limit drivers' memory access
In monolithic operating systems, a driver can write to any word of memory and thus accidentally trash user programs. In MINIX 3, when a user expects data from, for example, the file system, it builds a descriptor telling who has access and at what addresses. It then passes an index to this descriptor to the file system, which may pass it to a driver. The file system or driver then asks the kernel to write via the descriptor, making it impossible for them to write to addresses outside the buffer.
Survive bad pointers
Dereferencing a bad pointer within a driver will crash the driver process, but will have no effect on the system as a whole. The reincarnation server will restart the crashed driver automatically. For some drivers (e.g., disk and network) recovery is transparent to user processes. For others (e.g., audio and printer), the user may notice. In monolithic systems, dereferencing a bad pointer in a (kernel) driver normally leads to a system crash.
Tame infinite loops
If a driver gets into an infinite loop, the scheduler will gradually lower its priority until it becomes the idle process. Eventually the reincarnation server will see that it is not responding to status requests, so it will kill and restart the looping driver. In a monolithic system, a looping driver could hang the system.
Limit damage from buffer overruns
MINIX 3 uses fixed-length messages for internal communication, which eliminates certain buffer overruns and buffer management problems. Also, many exploits work by overrunning a buffer to trick the progr
Thank you but I don't consider myself to have anything but the most basic knowledge of CS. I am an applications programmer. I have fixed a Linux device driver once. I have read a few OS design books when I was younger and that is about it. That is what is so scary. The parent post makes me look like a freaking expert!
That really isn't possible.
If you created say a new Webcam and you wrote a driver for it the best path would be.
Make the driver FOSS and submit it to be added to the Kernel. The problem is you will have to wait until it is included in the kernel and then wait for the distros to adopt that version of the kernel.
Putting the driver on the CD or the internet isn't a great solution because the driver binary interface can and does change so there is good chance that the driver you include will not work. You could include the source but then you will have to provide someway for end user to compile the driver. Not exactly a simple thing to make easy. Yes I know how to run make and download libs but my mother might find gcc to be a little less than friendly.
So the end result is you new super wiz bang webcam can not be shipped until... Well that is out of your control.
This is where the lack of a binary driver interface is a problem.
"On the topic of Minix 3, itself.
It may be a fine instructional OS. Great! That's awesome. I applaud it and have no qualms promoting it in that realm. Beautiful."
Not really Minix 3 isn't trying a microkernel verison of Linux it is trying to be a more secure and reliable POSIX operating system. It uses a microkernel design to achieve things like self healing and security. Adding those features to Linux would a complete rewrite of Linux.
"If my info on GNU/Hurd was invalid, then I stand corrected. I assumed that Hurd was the microkernel with Linux (usually Debian) on top. I should have been clearer about that."
You info is wrong and no it doesn't run Linux on top, and no you can't be clearer because that statment is totally wrong.
"It's conceptually similar, in many ways, to Xen's hypervisor."
No it isn't. Xen is a hypervisor it isn't a microkernel. You could host Hurd and or Minx 3 on Xen but you can't host Xen on Minx 3 or Hurd. You don't take an OS and just run it as a service under an microkernel and a hypervisor by it's self doesn't run applications like a microkernal OS does. The only way that they are similar is that they are small compact bits of code the provide some type of abstraction of the underlining hardware.
"In both cases, Linux isn't the only OS to be hostable on Hurd."
You don't host any OS on Hurd. You can create servers that offer the same services as a specific OS. Much like Wine does under Linux.
"On the other hand, Tanenbaum isn't making apples to apples comparisons, otherwise why not take Vista to task, at the same time? Linux is nothing like Minix, so why compare the two in this way? Why not go after Solaris and others, as well?"
Did you read the article? He wasn't comparing Linux to Minix 3 at all. He didn't go after any one.
And yes he was critical of all current Operating Systems.
"Better yet, make a super cool microkernel for Linux, support Xen-style hypervisors, or something. In other words, don't just complain, do something useful, to help out."
Um.. Gee let's see he is working a POSIX operating system with the goals of making it secure and self healing.... Yea that is so useless. Just for kicks what OS or significant piece of FOSS have you written? How have you helped?
So you have written a lot with NO UNDERSTANDING of what you are talking about.
I want some new options for moderation just for posts like this. +5 Ignorant +5 Arrogant!
Before you start telling Tanenbaum what he should do to be usful you need to learn the difference between a Hypervisor and a Microkernel, the difference between Hurd and Linux, and the difference between someone with an actual education in Computer Science and yourself. Might I suggest you pick up Tanenbaum's text book? It was of great help to Linus.
So what you are saying is that bad security is good for the user?
Microkernel doesn't mean DRM. BTW Vista isn't a microkernel and it seems to have a ton of DRM.
All it takes is signed drivers and an MMU to make DRM just about as secure on a monolithic kernel as a microkernel.
So that really isn't an issue.
Actually the Atari 400/800 was a competitor to the AppleII. It was a better gaming machine.
The C-64 was was a competitor to the Apple II+ and Apple IIe.
The Apple IIGS competed with the Commodore 128, the Amiga, and the Atari ST.
Which was better between the 128 and IIgs? That is a really hard fight. The IIgs was really a 16bit mutant AppleII. It had a lot of features of the Mac thrown in. It had great sound but it was expensive.
The 128 had good sound, good graphics, 80 column text, it could run a mind numbing amount of software since it ran all the C-64 software. It's own native software, and CP/M.
Had it come out in 1982 it would have been huge.
The AppleII was great for two big reasons.
1. It had slots.
2. It was super well documented.
So it was easy two write software and build hardware for it.
It was well loved and one of many great machines of it's day.
Over all I do agree with you.
I have never been into being in too one solution is always the right solution.
Performance is really becoming less and less of an issue but I can see how some device drivers might need to be in the kernel for performance reasons. As was in the article why should a bad scanner, printer, or mouse driver crash a system?
I am not even saying that Microkernels are the best solution. I am just saying that to dismiss the comments of a man that really did write the book on OS design is just dumb.
QNX is relevant. Is it popular on the desktop? Not really but then you could say is BSD relevant? Is it popular on the desktop compared to Windows, MacOS/X or even Linux?
Is Linux relevant on the desktop? If you don't count duel boot machines how many Linux desktops are out there?
"Although microkernel OSs may be "nicer" from a design point of view, on the practical side the monolithical ones are serving us very well."
I have heard that argument before except it was about Unix. MS-DOS was so much faster and used less ram and drive space than Unix did.
To just dismiss microkernels because monolithic kernels are good enough is silly.
Actually Linux is starting to take some ideas from Microkernals. FUSE is a Microkernel idea. Moving more device drivers into userspace is also a very good idea. It means that security issues with a driver are less likely to root the OS or take out the OS with a crash.
Stablity and security are important aren't they?
But back to your comment yes QNX is relevant. It is relevant because it proves that you can have a small, fast, and stable microkernal OS.
I trust Google will not let us down. They are just waiting to see if they can get it for 4.6 instead of 4.7 Billion.
And then when they get it they will build out a solar powered wireless network that will offer broadband everywhere. Not only that it will be free and be faster than FIOS. It will be IPv6 so every user can have their own block of static IPs and it will smell like home made cookies and be as warm as a puppy.
Yea that is it.
Yep I had a friend that got a new motherboard for her PC. She tried to install and it just wouldn't work. She then found that it was missing a bunch of drivers so she had to take her orignal CD download a bunch of files and then create a new CD just to get it installed...
Oh wait that was Windows XP and she had to find out how to slipstream SP2 just to get it installed...
If you try to install an OS your self on to a PC you will probably have some hardware issues that you might have to figure out.
Doesn't matter if it is Linux or Windows.
". We're all anarchists here, right?"
Afraid not. As one guy pointed out. All you have to do look at any MMOG or USENET to see that Libertarianism will not work.
Some where between the Nanny from cradle to grave of Marx, the "Free Enterpise" of Ayn Rand, Libertarianism, and anarchy lies the best system.
Well that is Cessna doing that. I really don't like it but since I was born in Vero Beach FL I was taught from childhood that Cessna was Evil :)
A lot of the new LSA's are coming from the EU. Not what I really want but not terrible.
I would love for Piper to create and LSA and build it in Vero, Lakeland, or even open up a factory in Idaho, Kansas, or some other place in the US.
There are a lot of places in the US that are cheap to live and could really benefit from something like that.
I don't think it will happen. Piper is still struggling Cessna is now part of the Textron Megacorp so they have deep pockets. Piper right now is betting big on the new PiperJet. We will see what will happen.
BTW when I was a kid we would drive by Piper and see row after row of new Tomahawks, Arrows, Warriors, and Lances. Now when I go home to visit you might see one or two new planes coming out of the paint shop.
Sorry but it is bad business to let employees get hurt.
If you get hurt on the job you can sue the daylights out of them. The company looses an employee. Frankly good workers are hard to get. I have been the one doing the interviewing and sometimes you just take what you can get and hope for the best. I sure wouldn't want to have any of my good people hurt.
Again if you are in an unsafe work place I say leave if the boss will not fix it.
If they are that short sighted then even a union will not keep the place running when he blows it.