5 ms·

I’d frankly be surprised if you were able to muster the talent/willpower for something like this. 1. Most of the people able to do this sort of thing probably

I’d frankly be surprised if you were able to muster the talent/willpower for something like this. 1. Most of the people able to do this sort of thing probably work in Linux/FreeBSD/etc land. 2. You’re really working doubly against the tide here. You have proprietary stuff on the Mac and on the Windows side. 3. (Personal opinion) Dear God that sounds like a lot of work for something that is a fairly unfriendly experience on a few levels. At least they have Linux/BSD people trailblazing here (they acknowledge as much). If they can actually pull this off without changing something deeper than a what’s already exposed to kernel driver developers without horrible hacks or inefficiencies, I would be surprised. Disclaimer: Not really a kernel dev of any sort.

ragnarok451 4y ago
Why be so negative? The world is better for ambitious people like this
- boardwaalk 4y ago
  Sorry, I’m not specifically trying to be negative, these were just my honest first reactions. If they can do it, more power to ‘em.
sumy23 4y ago
I feel like there should be a common etiquette rule on HN where if you don't care about a particular project / technology / initiative that you skip commenting and move on. For example, your comment says that this initiative will not work out. Should there be a debate whether or not it's theoretically possibly for this to work out logistically? What is the value in that? Even if there is a convincing argument that this initiative could theoretically be successful, would that convince anyone to use the technology? No, it would not.
- vlunkr 4y ago
  They didn't say they aren't interested in the idea, they just expressed skepticism. > Should there be a debate whether or not it's theoretically possibly for this to work out logistically? What is the value in that? Certainly if you're going to work on this you'd like to know if it's just a dead end.
  - evanmoran 4y ago
    This is an incredibly challenging problem so I imagine if you have any chance of coding it you probably know what you’re getting yourself into.
  - majormajor 4y ago
    I would be with you except for the "Disclaimer: Not really a kernel dev of any sort." bit at the end. Skepticism from people not in the field is far less meaningful (as is booster-ism, for that matter).
  - tobylane 4y ago
    You’ll only know by doing it. It is especially blind because, as you say, it’s bringing two black boxes together. It’s a sufficiently major point of interest to such a large number of people that I hope people feel motivated to try.
- diffeomorphism 4y ago
  I feel that this is "rule" would be either incredibly harmful or effectively empty. The post you are criticizing is quite obviously not an example of "don't care", nor is your "summary" anywhere close to accurate. Yet you want to remove such posts? Do you want to remove all constructive criticism or debate while you are at it? Only echo chambers allowed?
zeusk 4y ago
I work on the NT kernel and DirectX, I'll definitely take a look at this over the weekend.
- frostwarrior 4y ago
  Did you start working since the Windows NT era? I'm curious. IMHO, windows things aside, the NT kernel is an impressive feat of engineering and I'm surprised it's still going after so many years.
  - zeusk 4y ago
    Unfortunately, I was born little after NT was already introduced :) It indeed is really an impressive feat of engineering, but really almost all existing OS platforms are essentially from pre-2000s. Even fushcia's magenta (iirc LK was inspired by BeOS, the author worked at Danger prior).
- amarioguy 4y ago
  hey, I'm the person embarking on the project, thanks for checking it out! one of the big reasons I started this project is that I've really been wanting to work on a project that deals with bootloader and kernel level code, and doing Windows bringup on the M1 seemed like a really interesting thing to tackle. While initial progress might be slow, it is indeed happening, I'm planning to post an update tonight actually, but I realize you're busy so feel free to check the website whenever you have a free moment. (It's basic I know i'm not a web person lol)
newaccount2021 4y ago
yazaddaruvala 4y ago
Fortunately, Microsoft seems to be moving towards: Windows as "just another Linux distribution" with a backwards compatibility layer. Previous Step: Linux compatibility layer on Windows. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install Current Step: Get DirectX to be first-class on Linux. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Microsoft-DXGKRNL-v3-Linux https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Microsof... Next Steps: Get the Windows GUI + Win32 APIs + backwards compatibility layer to run on WSL2. Port the best parts of NT to the Linux kernel. Final Step: Replace NT+WSL2, with the Linux kernel. Use the current devs/tests/etc working on NT for better ROI (from a business customer perspective the NT kernel is no longer a positive differentiation).
- noveltyaccount 4y ago
  Are those final two steps (next, final) pure speculation on your part? I'd be surprised if Windows threw out NT and moved to Linux kernel, and yet at the same time, it sounds like a great idea IMO (WSL2 + Docker is already a great experience for software development).
  - stevewatson301 4y ago
    Not the parent commenter but this isn’t as far fetched as it seems. Since much is abstracted by the Win32 and other APIs, they could write something to do exactly this.
    - layer8 4y ago
      This seems unlikely to me. For example, the threading model (non-forking) and file system semantics (locking, permissions, etc.) are wildly different. You’d need a complex compatibility layer and effectively two classes of applications (legacy and linux-y).
      - yazaddaruvala 4y ago
        If they can build WSL2, and WINE can be built without MSFTs help, I’m not sure what is left to doubt. At that point the only question is “Is the one time cost of building the compat layer less than the ongoing cost of improving NT? Building windows specific drivers? Etc”. “One time cost” is always going to win the negotiation in the long run.

ragnarok451 4y ago

Why be so negative? The world is better for ambitious people like this

boardwaalk 4y ago
Sorry, I’m not specifically trying to be negative, these were just my honest first reactions. If they can do it, more power to ‘em.

sumy23 4y ago

I feel like there should be a common etiquette rule on HN where if you don't care about a particular project / technology / initiative that you skip commenting and move on. For example, your comment says that this initiative will not work out. Should there be a debate whether or not it's theoretically possibly for this to work out logistically? What is the value in that? Even if there is a convincing argument that this initiative could theoretically be successful, would that convince anyone to use the technology? No, it would not.

vlunkr 4y ago
They didn't say they aren't interested in the idea, they just expressed skepticism. > Should there be a debate whether or not it's theoretically possibly for this to work out logistically? What is the value in that? Certainly if you're going to work on this you'd like to know if it's just a dead end.
- evanmoran 4y ago
  This is an incredibly challenging problem so I imagine if you have any chance of coding it you probably know what you’re getting yourself into.
- majormajor 4y ago
  I would be with you except for the "Disclaimer: Not really a kernel dev of any sort." bit at the end. Skepticism from people not in the field is far less meaningful (as is booster-ism, for that matter).
- tobylane 4y ago
  You’ll only know by doing it. It is especially blind because, as you say, it’s bringing two black boxes together. It’s a sufficiently major point of interest to such a large number of people that I hope people feel motivated to try.
diffeomorphism 4y ago
I feel that this is "rule" would be either incredibly harmful or effectively empty. The post you are criticizing is quite obviously not an example of "don't care", nor is your "summary" anywhere close to accurate. Yet you want to remove such posts? Do you want to remove all constructive criticism or debate while you are at it? Only echo chambers allowed?

zeusk 4y ago

I work on the NT kernel and DirectX, I'll definitely take a look at this over the weekend.

frostwarrior 4y ago
Did you start working since the Windows NT era? I'm curious. IMHO, windows things aside, the NT kernel is an impressive feat of engineering and I'm surprised it's still going after so many years.
- zeusk 4y ago
  Unfortunately, I was born little after NT was already introduced :) It indeed is really an impressive feat of engineering, but really almost all existing OS platforms are essentially from pre-2000s. Even fushcia's magenta (iirc LK was inspired by BeOS, the author worked at Danger prior).
amarioguy 4y ago
hey, I'm the person embarking on the project, thanks for checking it out! one of the big reasons I started this project is that I've really been wanting to work on a project that deals with bootloader and kernel level code, and doing Windows bringup on the M1 seemed like a really interesting thing to tackle. While initial progress might be slow, it is indeed happening, I'm planning to post an update tonight actually, but I realize you're busy so feel free to check the website whenever you have a free moment. (It's basic I know i'm not a web person lol)

newaccount2021 4y ago

yazaddaruvala 4y ago

Fortunately, Microsoft seems to be moving towards: Windows as "just another Linux distribution" with a backwards compatibility layer. Previous Step: Linux compatibility layer on Windows. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install Current Step: Get DirectX to be first-class on Linux. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Microsoft-DXGKRNL-v3-Linux https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Microsof... Next Steps: Get the Windows GUI + Win32 APIs + backwards compatibility layer to run on WSL2. Port the best parts of NT to the Linux kernel. Final Step: Replace NT+WSL2, with the Linux kernel. Use the current devs/tests/etc working on NT for better ROI (from a business customer perspective the NT kernel is no longer a positive differentiation).

noveltyaccount 4y ago
Are those final two steps (next, final) pure speculation on your part? I'd be surprised if Windows threw out NT and moved to Linux kernel, and yet at the same time, it sounds like a great idea IMO (WSL2 + Docker is already a great experience for software development).
- stevewatson301 4y ago
  Not the parent commenter but this isn’t as far fetched as it seems. Since much is abstracted by the Win32 and other APIs, they could write something to do exactly this.
  - layer8 4y ago
    This seems unlikely to me. For example, the threading model (non-forking) and file system semantics (locking, permissions, etc.) are wildly different. You’d need a complex compatibility layer and effectively two classes of applications (legacy and linux-y).
    - yazaddaruvala 4y ago
      If they can build WSL2, and WINE can be built without MSFTs help, I’m not sure what is left to doubt. At that point the only question is “Is the one time cost of building the compat layer less than the ongoing cost of improving NT? Building windows specific drivers? Etc”. “One time cost” is always going to win the negotiation in the long run.