3 ms·

QNX springs to mind in that case, but I'm not sure if it's really viable as a day-to-day OS. There's a distro of it out there somewhere, I guess. (Usually it's

QNX springs to mind in that case, but I'm not sure if it's really viable as a day-to-day OS. There's a distro of it out there somewhere, I guess. (Usually it's used in embedded systems)

harryf 9y ago
This looks a little promising https://membarrier.wordpress.com/2017/04/12/qnx-7-desktop/ https://membarrier.wordpress.com/2017/04/12/qnx-7-desktop/
- exikyut 9y ago
  FWIW, this is QNX's direction going forward. Photon is (sadly) old and unupgraded, and doesn't support the latest graphics architectures.
- j_s 9y ago
  Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14230112 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14230112 (91 comments; April 2017)
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
exikyut 9y ago
You are most likely thinking of QNX 6.5.0. That was the last version of QNX to include Photon, which was QNX's equivalent of X11. QNX no longer includes a desktop; its graphics stack is engineered solely for use by eg Qt apps (the equivalent of Qt using /dev/fb* on Linux). For what it's worth, QNX <7 is similar to Windows XP - not the latest version, but very much in active use, and definitely not abandonware. My interest in QNX is solely academic/hobbyist; I actually keep QNX 4.25 and 6.5.0 open in QEMU in the background and VNC to them occasionally for fun. (4.25 uses 1.3% and 6.5.0 uses ~5% CPU if I don't pause qemu.) Finding older versions of QNX is a small challenge; getting them working is also Fun™. For reference, my email is in my profile. For reference, older versions of QNX may not work well on newer hardware, unfortunately.
_pmf_ 9y ago
Isn't QNX the only actual microkernel that has any kind of significant active user base (though not for the desktop use case, of course)?
- dfox 9y ago
  I've seen several deployments that used (and probably still use) QNX with Photon as more or less desktop system. Typically these are installations where software running on some backend servers running on QNX controls some kind of industrial process or otherwise weird hardware and the operations staff have QNX based workstations for UI to control that which they then at the same time use for some mundane desktop-ish tasks (email, unrelated web apps...).

QNX springs to mind in that case, but I'm not sure if it's really viable as a day-to-day OS. There's a distro of it out there somewhere, I guess. (Usually it's used in embedded systems)

harryf 9y ago

This looks a little promising https://membarrier.wordpress.com/2017/04/12/qnx-7-desktop/ https://membarrier.wordpress.com/2017/04/12/qnx-7-desktop/

exikyut 9y ago
FWIW, this is QNX's direction going forward. Photon is (sadly) old and unupgraded, and doesn't support the latest graphics architectures.
j_s 9y ago
Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14230112 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14230112 (91 comments; April 2017)

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

exikyut 9y ago

You are most likely thinking of QNX 6.5.0. That was the last version of QNX to include Photon, which was QNX's equivalent of X11. QNX no longer includes a desktop; its graphics stack is engineered solely for use by eg Qt apps (the equivalent of Qt using /dev/fb* on Linux). For what it's worth, QNX <7 is similar to Windows XP - not the latest version, but very much in active use, and definitely not abandonware. My interest in QNX is solely academic/hobbyist; I actually keep QNX 4.25 and 6.5.0 open in QEMU in the background and VNC to them occasionally for fun. (4.25 uses 1.3% and 6.5.0 uses ~5% CPU if I don't pause qemu.) Finding older versions of QNX is a small challenge; getting them working is also Fun™. For reference, my email is in my profile. For reference, older versions of QNX may not work well on newer hardware, unfortunately.

_pmf_ 9y ago

Isn't QNX the only actual microkernel that has any kind of significant active user base (though not for the desktop use case, of course)?

dfox 9y ago
I've seen several deployments that used (and probably still use) QNX with Photon as more or less desktop system. Typically these are installations where software running on some backend servers running on QNX controls some kind of industrial process or otherwise weird hardware and the operations staff have QNX based workstations for UI to control that which they then at the same time use for some mundane desktop-ish tasks (email, unrelated web apps...).