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HelenOS 0.8
- ianai 8y agoI like the concept. It sounds like a modern take on some of the plan9 ideas. Decoupling of system components into components that work together through a message passing framework.
- jpm_sd 8y agoSounds a bit like QNX actually
- xyproto 8y agoIs QNX used anywhere? Sounds interesting.
- ianai 8y agoI’ve seen other comments describe QNX being used in embedded systems needing rock solid performance.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- tomcam 8y agoIt's in millions of devices. Blackberry acquired them IIRC. You don't run across it much on HN because it's a standard commercial license.
- nopetrain 8y agoLots of infotainment in cars use QNX, along with aviation.
- jpm_sd 8y agoAlso medical devices
- jayalpha 8y agoLot of new stuff coming up. Also see: https://harvey-os.org/ https://harvey-os.org/ https://www.redox-os.org/ https://www.redox-os.org/
- synchronise 8y agoJust had a look over Harvey OS, looks like a pretty neat direction to take Plan 9. But it got me wondering, is there any shared collaberation between any of the next-gen 'Plan 9-like' OS's like 9atom, 9front and Harvey OS? Also, it looks as though Harvey OS is only using Slack for its discussion forum, which is a bit odd for an open source project.
- aeneasmackenzie 8y ago9front views HarveyOS with scorn and I don't think 9atom is developed.
- em-bee 8y agowhy is that? got any references?
- aeneasmackenzie 8y agoHarveyOS is "plan 9 with gcc" but 9front doesn't like gnu stuff. See cat-v, suckless, and their IRC channel.
- em-bee 8y agoah, yes, i can see the problem.
- jacques_chester 8y agoFor those who, like me, wondered "what's HelenOS?" and got little idea from release notes: http://www.helenos.org/wiki/About http://www.helenos.org/wiki/About
- yjftsjthsd-h 8y agoUnfortunately, http://www.helenos.org/wiki/DiffFromUnix http://www.helenos.org/wiki/DiffFromUnix presents it as different enough to make porting software difficult. On the other hand, they say they've got GCC and Python, so it's doable.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y agoIt it wasn't different enough to make porting software difficult, it probably wouldn't be different enough to bother making.
- asveikau 8y agoI am frankly not very impressed with a quick glance at the networking API. What they show would not be difficult to implement as a library atop sockets, and I'm not convinced their callbacks capture the full flexibility of the old APIs. Meanwhile not providing at least a wrapper to handle the most simple socket scenarios to aid in porting strikes me as a bit stubborn. They determined a priori to hate sockets and that's it.
- elihu 8y agoSome of those actually sound like nice improvements. I think the Unix-style API is in need of a bit of modernization, and it's nice to see someone trying some minor adjustments. If users need a plain Linux-compatible API, then presumably someone will build a library to handle that. No need to make the raw system call API exactly the same as Linux just for historical compatibility reasons, especially when the opportunity presents itself to clean things up a little. (I could rant at considerable length about what I would change if I were creating a system-call interface from scratch.)
- toyg 8y ago
- karmakaze 8y agoIs there a 'distrowatch' for OSes other than Linux/BSD-based? I can't keep up with them all anymore.
- edwintorok 8y agoThere are sometimes articles here about "off-the-beaten-track" OS: https://www.osnews.com/ https://www.osnews.com/
- protomyth 8y agoosnews.com was once pretty good, but I haven't read it in a while and they did have some recent problems.
- SyneRyder 8y agoYikes, it does seem like OSnews have had a rocky few days. (TLDR: "It certainly seems like we’ve had a breach.") https://www.osnews.com/story/128924/what-happened-here/ https://www.osnews.com/story/128924/what-happened-here/ To their credit, it looks like they're now trying to find ways to run the site profitably, so they can pay people to maintain the site part/full-time instead of relying on volunteer help.
- flag_bcz_mad 8y agoWhat kinds of tasks are slower on a micro-kernel? Are there use-cases where a micro-kernel is just as fast as a monolithic?
- Tuna-Fish 8y ago> What kinds of tasks are slower on a micro-kernel? Crossing from usermode to kernel is slower, and generally doing complex things in kernel is much slower. (Where complex means cross-cutting concerns, so multiple different kernel processes need to be involved.) > Are there use-cases where a micro-kernel is just as fast as a monolithic? Anything that doesn't really involve the kernel much at all, and things that take a lot of time in kernel but do so in one part of it with no need for input from other parts. Generally, when you go for a microkernel you need to accept that it will be slower than monolithic. It might still be worth it for the advantages of microkernels, namely being easier to verify, understand and secure.
- lucozade 8y agoThe basic issue is that, when you make a syscall in most kernels, it needs to do permission/capability checks. With a micro kernel, it’s more or less inevitable that you have a lot more traffic in and out of the kernel so the overhead tends to be higher. If your application doesn’t make a lot of syscalls then you won’t have the issue so much e.g. something very compute heavy. You mitigate the issues, on the kernel side, by making the checks as fast as possible and removing them if it’s safe. On the userspace side, you try to avoid syscalls in performance critical code. Like you would with a monolithic kernel.
- dang 8y agoFrom 2017: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15046249 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15046249
- born2discover 8y agoHow is it different from [Minix3][1]? It seems to accomplish the exactly same goal. [1](https://www.minix3.org/ https://www.minix3.org/)
- adamnemecek 8y agoYou mean because they are both microkernels? In that sense windows and Linux accomplish the same goal as well.
- smartbit 8y agohttp://www.helenos.org/wiki/FAQ#HowisHelenOSdifferentfromMINIX3 http://www.helenos.org/wiki/FAQ#HowisHelenOSdifferentfromMIN...
- rcarmo 8y agoInteresting. Anyone got this running on a Raspberry Pi?