5 ms·

Redox is interesting and shows promise https://github.com/redox-os/redox https://github.com/redox-os/redox ...but it’s in no way a departure from the status qu

Redox is interesting and shows promise https://github.com/redox-os/redox https://github.com/redox-os/redox ...but it’s in no way a departure from the status quo, even referring to itself as kernel + GNU/BSD style ecosystem. I wonder if we will see a new paradigm anytime soon. The Hurd?

busterarm 9y ago
The amount of evangelism around Redox, especially from jackpot51 himself, while it's still really little more than a toy, leaves me nervous backing such claims.
- tormeh 9y ago
  Well, it's the first OS that isn't built on C/C++ (unsafe languages). That alone is a huge step forward for security and correctness. And it seems to improve on Linux on most ways, which is nice. Sure, besides Rust there aren't any new big ideas going on in Redox, but is there anything better out there? Rust+microkernel sounds like state-of-the-art to me.
  - busterarm 9y ago
    > Well, it's the first OS that isn't built on C/C++ (unsafe languages)... This isn't even remotely true, but we're in the age of short memories. There have been several operating systems built in Java within our (careers') lifetimes. And dozens of operating systems that predate C. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_operating_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_operating_systems There's nothing preventing other operating systems from being written in a safe way -- they just aren't. There are also multiple definitions of the word "safe". As in, "BSD or Linux are safe to bet the software architecture of my multi-million systems budget". No new ideas mean no reason for me to even consider adoption until it reaches critical mass. Maybe in a decade I'll give it a look. Edit: Multics was written in PL/I, which itself just had a new stable release this past September... Edit2: Redox isn't really that safe even. It's pretty cavalier and leaves a lot up to the application. It uses the unsafe parts of Rust a bit. An application can still malloc and forget to free -- so aren't you right where you started? Really every time this comes up, I would like to posit that "people evangelizing Redox don't even know what the f* they're talking about", but I honestly don't have time outside of my real work to dig into the thing. jackpot51 is fantastic at PR for his project though, and I don't want to discourage anyone from working on. It's good that it has an active community, I just don't need to hear about it. Edit3: Checking Redox' source shows that about 1.5% of the code invokes 'unsafe' and they cite this in their documentation, but what I really want to know is how frequently those lines of code are called.
    - antpls 9y ago
      >Edit3: Checking Redox' source shows that about 1.5% of the code invokes 'unsafe' and they cite this in their documentation, but what I really want to know is how frequently those lines of code are called. I never used Rust but looked at it several times over the past years. Doesn't the 'unsafe' classification allow for future automated tools/theorem provers to challenge those specific lines? Looking for vulnerabilities/bugs in only 1.5% of the code instead of the entire code base sounds like a nice improvement.
      - steveklabnik 9y ago
        Not today, but we hope tomorrow. We're working on it.
    - verletx64 9y ago
      > An application can still malloc and forget to free -- so aren't you right where you started? The upside of invoking unsafe means that you were able to find out that 1.5% of the code is unsafe and you are able to focus in on it. Put another way, it makes the haystack significantly smaller.
      - renox 9y ago
        Only if you created a 'safe API' on top of the unsafe code otherwise the bug could be everywhere.. I remember a SSL bug which was really an API bug: it isn't always easy to create a 'safe' API..
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    > Well, it's the first OS that isn't built on C/C++ (unsafe languages). That was in 1961 at Burroughs, using ESPOL. There were plenty of OS being built in Algol and PL/I variants outside AT&T walls since the 60's. History is full of OS written in other languages that weren't either C or C++, including Apple's Lisa OS and the first editions of Mac OS.
jtolmar 9y ago
> I wonder if we will see a new paradigm anytime soon. I'd like to see something like a self-hosting library OS. The entire OS is a single giant application, software is installed by adding the source code and recompiling the whole thing, and security is done using language-level and package management constructs.
- shalabhc 9y ago
  You mean the web browser, now with wasm? ;-)
  - shawnz 9y ago
    Or any other platform that uses JIT
- sigjuice 9y ago
  See https://mirage.io https://mirage.io MirageOS is a library operating system ...
  - jtolmar 9y ago
    The way a library OS normally works is that you compile your OS+App on one machine and install it on another (virtual or otherwise). What I'm suggesting is that you compile on one machine and then reinstall your OS on the same machine, and the result is still able to do this trick.
    - fredrb 9y ago
      I like the idea of a library operating systems and the Unikernel architecture. But a good idea would be having a multi-thread operating system only as a hub for multiple virtualization boxes. Than we can leverage the idea of having an OS image bundles with the application and deploy there. We'd change completely how applications are managed/installed.
      - thinkmassive 9y ago
shalabhc 9y ago
If you're interested in different paradigms see https://github.com/dzavalishin/phantomuserland/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/dzavalishin/phantomuserland/blob/master/R...
kbenson 9y ago
Building an OS that doesn't rely heavily on some existing userspace and windowing paradigm is like building a new land vehicle that can't use roads. In isolation it might be superior and have laudable attributes, but you're maybe a millionth the way towards competing with current automobiles for a general purpose solution in any fairly densely populated country.
- fredrb 9y ago
  We'll make it use railroads then :-)
AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago
Yeah, Redox has precisely one interesting idea as far as I can see: it evolves the "everything is a file (except when it isn't)" UNIX paradigm with "everything is a URI". Other than that it's just any old UNIX clone with worse hardware support and Rust hype.
- busterarm 9y ago
  The best answer to "Rust hype" I've ever seen. https://www.viva64.com/en/b/0324/ https://www.viva64.com/en/b/0324/
  - steveklabnik 9y ago
    Discussed heavily when it was posted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9531822 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9531822 and then again a year ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12232385 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12232385
    - busterarm 9y ago
      Absolutely. For clarification, I've tried and liked Rust and would probably use it on the right project. I still feel like there's some hype around it though.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]

busterarm 9y ago

The amount of evangelism around Redox, especially from jackpot51 himself, while it's still really little more than a toy, leaves me nervous backing such claims.

tormeh 9y ago
Well, it's the first OS that isn't built on C/C++ (unsafe languages). That alone is a huge step forward for security and correctness. And it seems to improve on Linux on most ways, which is nice. Sure, besides Rust there aren't any new big ideas going on in Redox, but is there anything better out there? Rust+microkernel sounds like state-of-the-art to me.
- busterarm 9y ago
  > Well, it's the first OS that isn't built on C/C++ (unsafe languages)... This isn't even remotely true, but we're in the age of short memories. There have been several operating systems built in Java within our (careers') lifetimes. And dozens of operating systems that predate C. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_operating_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_operating_systems There's nothing preventing other operating systems from being written in a safe way -- they just aren't. There are also multiple definitions of the word "safe". As in, "BSD or Linux are safe to bet the software architecture of my multi-million systems budget". No new ideas mean no reason for me to even consider adoption until it reaches critical mass. Maybe in a decade I'll give it a look. Edit: Multics was written in PL/I, which itself just had a new stable release this past September... Edit2: Redox isn't really that safe even. It's pretty cavalier and leaves a lot up to the application. It uses the unsafe parts of Rust a bit. An application can still malloc and forget to free -- so aren't you right where you started? Really every time this comes up, I would like to posit that "people evangelizing Redox don't even know what the f* they're talking about", but I honestly don't have time outside of my real work to dig into the thing. jackpot51 is fantastic at PR for his project though, and I don't want to discourage anyone from working on. It's good that it has an active community, I just don't need to hear about it. Edit3: Checking Redox' source shows that about 1.5% of the code invokes 'unsafe' and they cite this in their documentation, but what I really want to know is how frequently those lines of code are called.
  - antpls 9y ago
    >Edit3: Checking Redox' source shows that about 1.5% of the code invokes 'unsafe' and they cite this in their documentation, but what I really want to know is how frequently those lines of code are called. I never used Rust but looked at it several times over the past years. Doesn't the 'unsafe' classification allow for future automated tools/theorem provers to challenge those specific lines? Looking for vulnerabilities/bugs in only 1.5% of the code instead of the entire code base sounds like a nice improvement.
    - steveklabnik 9y ago
      Not today, but we hope tomorrow. We're working on it.
  - verletx64 9y ago
    > An application can still malloc and forget to free -- so aren't you right where you started? The upside of invoking unsafe means that you were able to find out that 1.5% of the code is unsafe and you are able to focus in on it. Put another way, it makes the haystack significantly smaller.
    - renox 9y ago
      Only if you created a 'safe API' on top of the unsafe code otherwise the bug could be everywhere.. I remember a SSL bug which was really an API bug: it isn't always easy to create a 'safe' API..
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
- pjmlp 9y ago
  > Well, it's the first OS that isn't built on C/C++ (unsafe languages). That was in 1961 at Burroughs, using ESPOL. There were plenty of OS being built in Algol and PL/I variants outside AT&T walls since the 60's. History is full of OS written in other languages that weren't either C or C++, including Apple's Lisa OS and the first editions of Mac OS.

jtolmar 9y ago

> I wonder if we will see a new paradigm anytime soon. I'd like to see something like a self-hosting library OS. The entire OS is a single giant application, software is installed by adding the source code and recompiling the whole thing, and security is done using language-level and package management constructs.

shalabhc 9y ago
You mean the web browser, now with wasm? ;-)
- shawnz 9y ago
  Or any other platform that uses JIT
sigjuice 9y ago
See https://mirage.io https://mirage.io MirageOS is a library operating system ...
- jtolmar 9y ago
  The way a library OS normally works is that you compile your OS+App on one machine and install it on another (virtual or otherwise). What I'm suggesting is that you compile on one machine and then reinstall your OS on the same machine, and the result is still able to do this trick.
  - fredrb 9y ago
    I like the idea of a library operating systems and the Unikernel architecture. But a good idea would be having a multi-thread operating system only as a hub for multiple virtualization boxes. Than we can leverage the idea of having an OS image bundles with the application and deploy there. We'd change completely how applications are managed/installed.
    - thinkmassive 9y ago

shalabhc 9y ago

If you're interested in different paradigms see https://github.com/dzavalishin/phantomuserland/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/dzavalishin/phantomuserland/blob/master/R...

kbenson 9y ago

Building an OS that doesn't rely heavily on some existing userspace and windowing paradigm is like building a new land vehicle that can't use roads. In isolation it might be superior and have laudable attributes, but you're maybe a millionth the way towards competing with current automobiles for a general purpose solution in any fairly densely populated country.

fredrb 9y ago
We'll make it use railroads then :-)

AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago

Yeah, Redox has precisely one interesting idea as far as I can see: it evolves the "everything is a file (except when it isn't)" UNIX paradigm with "everything is a URI". Other than that it's just any old UNIX clone with worse hardware support and Rust hype.

busterarm 9y ago
The best answer to "Rust hype" I've ever seen. https://www.viva64.com/en/b/0324/ https://www.viva64.com/en/b/0324/
- steveklabnik 9y ago
  Discussed heavily when it was posted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9531822 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9531822 and then again a year ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12232385 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12232385
  - busterarm 9y ago
    Absolutely. For clarification, I've tried and liked Rust and would probably use it on the right project. I still feel like there's some hype around it though.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]