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Well, congratulations are in order, if this is the first step towards throwing out most of the OS. Face it. Linux had its time, its conception of the world ref

Well, congratulations are in order, if this is the first step towards throwing out most of the OS. Face it. Linux had its time, its conception of the world reflect a developers wet dream from the mainframe era, with many users, few resources, and the soon to be extinct dictator, err, universally hated system administrator. Who needs elaborate permissions when you're the only user on the system? Which user still shares data without sending it, manipulating permissions? Who likes managing installs and incompatible dependencies? Hell, just copy the data, that's what we all do. The file-system dedups it anyways if necessary. The list of unused and unwanted features goes on, but developers just keep reincarnating this same old fantasy of an anachronistic OS. It seems to me nobody but Linus can make them see again.. Linus, there's so much pain. What's the use case these days? Do you see Linux going over its own horizon, how? I suspect your answer involves a server OS. PS, this idea of course also reminds of Microsoft's Singularity OS.

umanwizard 8y ago
Virtually all production servers in the world today are running GNU/Linux. The substantial majority of smartphones run a Linux kernel. I wouldn't say Linux has "had its time". You may be right that the traditional permissions model is outdated, but it represents only a very small part of what Linux does, and indeed it seems totally unrelated to this project, so I'm not sure what point you're making. To use the Android example again, it's proof that you can layer a very different permissions model (single-human-user app sandboxing) on top of the Linux kernel.
- filleduchaos 8y ago
  Android uses the Unix permission model heavily - sandboxing is achieved by creating a new user per app, and filesystem, network, etc permissions are managed via user and group IDs just like with Unix. So how is it "very different" (in implementation, not surface appearance)?
  - umanwizard 8y ago
    Surface appearance was my point -- it's possible to create a model that's very different from the user's perspective without changing the underlying model of the kernel.
flavio81 8y ago
>Face it. Linux I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you’re referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX. Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called “Linux”, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project. There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called “Linux” distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.

umanwizard 8y ago

Virtually all production servers in the world today are running GNU/Linux. The substantial majority of smartphones run a Linux kernel. I wouldn't say Linux has "had its time". You may be right that the traditional permissions model is outdated, but it represents only a very small part of what Linux does, and indeed it seems totally unrelated to this project, so I'm not sure what point you're making. To use the Android example again, it's proof that you can layer a very different permissions model (single-human-user app sandboxing) on top of the Linux kernel.

filleduchaos 8y ago
Android uses the Unix permission model heavily - sandboxing is achieved by creating a new user per app, and filesystem, network, etc permissions are managed via user and group IDs just like with Unix. So how is it "very different" (in implementation, not surface appearance)?
- umanwizard 8y ago
  Surface appearance was my point -- it's possible to create a model that's very different from the user's perspective without changing the underlying model of the kernel.

flavio81 8y ago

>Face it. Linux I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you’re referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX. Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called “Linux”, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project. There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called “Linux” distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.