4 ms·

Well Intel chose minix to run their often despised management engine, so their engineers saw some benefit there to the microkernel architecture. Google is putti

Well Intel chose minix to run their often despised management engine, so their engineers saw some benefit there to the microkernel architecture. Google is putting at least nomimal developer resources into Fuschia. And the L4 microkernel and derivatives displayed that microkernels aren't doomed to be slow. I think that Linux is probably going to be the dominant free software kernel for quite some time especially since it has finally gotten to the point of at least receiving nominal driver support by hardware manufacturers. So Hurd will be a curiosity for now but considering its history it is still very cool that development continues. Whether it will become useful in ways that Linux is not remains to be seen.

zitterbewegung 7y ago
The L4 microkernel is currently being used by Apple in the secure enclave. See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209632 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209632
- harry8 7y ago
  Looks interesting. My former colleagues worked on porting osx to l4 more than a decade ago. That still doesn't look like a microkernel based, multi server os to me and does not claim to exhibit those of touted advantages. This reminds me more of dresdens live demo cd from about 2006. Great stuff, but more of a virtualisation layer than an os. I'd like to see it stand up.
  - anyfoo 7y ago
    Just out of curiosity, are you saying you don’t think the OS running on the Secure Enclave processor (which is separate from the main OS) looks like a multi server microkernel, or are you still referring to the osx on L4 Experiment you mentioned?
- carapace 7y ago
  And General Dynamics[1] bought OK Labs[2] in 2012, so presumably OKL4 or a descendant is in use there, eh? (In addition to "over 2 billion mobile phones".) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Kernel_Labs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Kernel_Labs
harry8 7y ago
I've worked on l4 fwiw. Show me those benefits on the wild. Intel's use of Minix, Qualcomm's use of l4 aren't showing me those benefits yet. If that's changed and they have I really do want to see it. Pointing out i haven't yet shouldn't be a sin, it should be quick to prove me wrong with some reasonable links with production ready more secure, more robust OSes. I'd pay performance for security and reliability in many instances. But AFAIK I can't.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

zitterbewegung 7y ago

The L4 microkernel is currently being used by Apple in the secure enclave. See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209632 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209632

harry8 7y ago
Looks interesting. My former colleagues worked on porting osx to l4 more than a decade ago. That still doesn't look like a microkernel based, multi server os to me and does not claim to exhibit those of touted advantages. This reminds me more of dresdens live demo cd from about 2006. Great stuff, but more of a virtualisation layer than an os. I'd like to see it stand up.
- anyfoo 7y ago
  Just out of curiosity, are you saying you don’t think the OS running on the Secure Enclave processor (which is separate from the main OS) looks like a multi server microkernel, or are you still referring to the osx on L4 Experiment you mentioned?
carapace 7y ago
And General Dynamics[1] bought OK Labs[2] in 2012, so presumably OKL4 or a descendant is in use there, eh? (In addition to "over 2 billion mobile phones".) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Kernel_Labs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Kernel_Labs

harry8 7y ago

I've worked on l4 fwiw. Show me those benefits on the wild. Intel's use of Minix, Qualcomm's use of l4 aren't showing me those benefits yet. If that's changed and they have I really do want to see it. Pointing out i haven't yet shouldn't be a sin, it should be quick to prove me wrong with some reasonable links with production ready more secure, more robust OSes. I'd pay performance for security and reliability in many instances. But AFAIK I can't.

deleted 7y ago
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