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>the hardware support and tooling is unfortunately just too anemic to reasonable do this. Not sure about tooling, but I think hardware, one of the two problems

>the hardware support and tooling is unfortunately just too anemic to reasonable do this. Not sure about tooling, but I think hardware, one of the two problems you mentioned can be solved by virtualizing. You can run the micro kernel-based OS in a VM and hardware support usually will get better because it is standard. If you don't like the feeling of running the OS inside a window in the host OS, you can assign the whole machine to a graphics card and a set of keyboard and mouse with pass through (io-mmu/VT-d) on Linux KVM. That way, you only have to worry about a compatible graphics card, and everything else is emulated and standard. I haven't tried any micro kernel-based OS myself but I had a very good luck running both Windows and macOS virtualized on my Ivy Bridge desktop system I built 7 years ago running Fedora as the host OS. It's freaking amazing and I suffer almost no performance degradation.

walterbell 9y ago
Which version of macOS and distro do you use? Are there good docs for setting it up?
- jimmies 9y ago
  I largely followed the guide on OSX-KVM repo on github. For the GPU to work, I used an AMD RX-560. After installing El Capitan with a virtual graphics card, I upgraded to High Sierra and passthrough the card. It took a while, but worth the troubles.
xelxebar 9y ago
Running in a VM is a reasonable idea. Though part of my reason for wanting to run a microkernel is as a quest to run as minimal hardware + software as possibly without cramping usability (for appropriate meanings of "usability"). No good reason for this other than just to learn things along the way. At this point the Hurd doesn't even have USB or sound, IIRC, so even with virtualization we're a bit upstream without a paddle. Random question. My experience with virtualization is quite limited. How streamlined is the data sharing stuff between instances (files, clipboard, etc)?

walterbell 9y ago

Which version of macOS and distro do you use? Are there good docs for setting it up?

jimmies 9y ago
I largely followed the guide on OSX-KVM repo on github. For the GPU to work, I used an AMD RX-560. After installing El Capitan with a virtual graphics card, I upgraded to High Sierra and passthrough the card. It took a while, but worth the troubles.

xelxebar 9y ago

Running in a VM is a reasonable idea. Though part of my reason for wanting to run a microkernel is as a quest to run as minimal hardware + software as possibly without cramping usability (for appropriate meanings of "usability"). No good reason for this other than just to learn things along the way. At this point the Hurd doesn't even have USB or sound, IIRC, so even with virtualization we're a bit upstream without a paddle. Random question. My experience with virtualization is quite limited. How streamlined is the data sharing stuff between instances (files, clipboard, etc)?