5 ms·

Serenity is still on the list of things I need to try out. Can't say anything about it at the moment. But I have to admit that regardless the hype around it I

Serenity is still on the list of things I need to try out. Can't say anything about it at the moment. But I have to admit that regardless the hype around it I don't think that it's particularly interesting. I see it as just yet another Unix clone; with exactly zero innovation behind it. Even Redox, which I consider being a complete failure, tried some seemingly new concepts (and uses a micro kernel which makes it at least a little bit less "mainstream"). Haiku is rock solid. Very interesting project! But I would not put it in the basket with toy or research OSes, though. It's based on something that had even quite some commercial success. But yes, Haiku is definitely an "alternative OS". It would have been better if I worded this part differently, I guess, as I'm mostly interested in "experimental" OS architectures and less in "random" alternative OSes. (So, for example I've never tried to run TempleOS, or such things; also I didn't put much effort to run historic ones, when they where just Unix clones; there are quite some of these out there I guess). Haiku is much more complete than HelenOS of course. You can do all the basic computer things with it. It has quite some applications. I still remember the time when BeOS, its successor, was actually even much more usable in a GUI setting than Linux, which barely run X and some fvwm2 windows with terminal emulators—whereas BeOS had fancy multi-media players and 3D graphics at that time. Haiku has this apps still, but that's much less impressive today of course. Haiku is for example much more polished than say Hurd. There is a "working" Debian/Hurd version out there. But it was so buggy last time I've tried! Things were constantly crashing or not working at all. The last time I've tried to run Haiku I didn't find anything that was servery broken there. HelenOS feels comparable stable to Haiku. But there is almost nothing besides the bare OS. I think it had a kind of "packet manager" the last time I've tried but this didn't work well for me. Also there were almost no applications available. But that's not a bad sign as I think the most work goes into the OS as such. Which is good! The few things that were there on the surface were like I've said snappy and working without crashes. Which is imho already an achievement when compared with a lot of other OS projects (e.g. Redox, Hurd, unikernel / library-OSes, or just a "tuned" Linux build ;-)).

emfax 4y ago
Could you expand on why you think Redox is a failure? Maybe also what you think it got right and what it got wrong?
JPLeRouzic 4y ago
>> I still remember the time when BeOS, its successor... English is not my native tongue but didn't you mean "BeOS, its predecessor" ? BeOS lived from 1995 to 2001, and Haiku development started in 2001 with a first release in 2009. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku_(operating_system)#Release_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku_(operating_system)#Relea...
- still_grokking 4y ago
  Oh, yes, of course! I'm also not a native speaker… I've expanded on my initial version and didn't double check the lengthy edit with some translation service because I didn't want to miss the edit window. But I guess the oversight should be clear form context. Can't edit it anyway. Thanks for pointing out this mistake! :-) (Now I'm going to check this particular word pair more thoroughly next time).
snvzz 4y ago
Go have a blast with Genode[0] and Managarm[1]. 0. https://www.genode.org https://www.genode.org 1. https://managarm.org/ https://managarm.org/
LeFantome 4y ago
SerenityOS is interesting because of its monolithic repository concept with everything from the kernel to the web browser as a single unified project. They even write their own image and video codecs and stuff like TLS and OpenGL that everybody just lifts from somewhere else. I would say that creating their own language to write the system in is pretty innovative. The power of the mono repo is really going to come through when they convert everything from C++ to Jakt. Perhaps the most impressive and innovative thing about SerenityOS is the way they are building their community though. I cannot think of another project with so many contributors developing so openly on YouTube. The rate at which the project is evolving is amazing. The SerenityOS project is extremely pragmatic so it is not going to charge off in truly experimental directions. That said, they borrow an impressive number of ideas from a fairly diverse set of influences. The pledge / unveil stuff from OpenBSD is interesting. The way they propagate errors throughout the stack is cool, and the fact that they built their own standard library for C++ is quite interesting. One area where SerenityOS may truly innovate is in the browser since the project founder used to build web browser engines for a living. If you do not think SerenityOS is interesting, maybe take a deeper look.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  So far they have been quite clear that there is no plan on converting everything into Jakt, because they are quite pragmantic about their need to keep using C++ in some parts.
  - LeFantome 4y ago
    They have been clear that they are not even writing anything new in Jakt because it is not ready yet. If you start seeing them wrote stuff in it, you will see them re-wrote stuff too. They can make the change whenever they want because of the mono repo. You can make changes all across the project on any given check-in. As you said, it is a very pragmatic project.
- still_grokking 4y ago
  Sorry to be so direct but exactly the things on which you expanded here are a very large part of my deep skepticism about SerenityOS. All that NIH without improving anything on the status quo is imho pure insanity! But OK, the project is mainly meant as a "therapy" for some mental illness, so this "makes sense" actually… (Just coding without thinking or carrying is quite some fun and liberating, indeed!) Besides the crazy amount of NIH the rate at which this project evolves is another very bad sign. (Reminds me strongly of "80% boy & his Redux OS"…). If you rush everything there is no time for planing or evaluating ideas. OTOH this is of course not needed if you do not intend to innovate on anything—and just rebuild once more things that already been built hundreds of times. I think alone scope creep will be deadly to this projects in the long run. For example one of the strongest reasons for Linux's success is imho that Linux concentrated solely on the OS. Where you end up when you want to do everything at once (especially without any research projects backing that effort!) at least I'm quite sure to know. Alone building a serous programming language is a life's work! (But OK, once again, Jakt isn't serous. It's not going to be even competitive with Carbon, as I see it, which itself isn't of any interests at all besides "Google is selling" it. Jakt is just the next fun NIH project, "because we can"). Regarding the community: Well, this dude attracted quite some attention with his personal life story. People seem to feel compassionate about him. So there is a lot of momentum. And sure, he's a nice guy. Only that he's quite off to when it comes to what he's producing. (Which is once again a very good prove of the fact that social circumstances have much more weight than any technological considerations; people care in the end about people, never really about the tech). Bottom line: I came to my conclusions about SerenityOS because I've looked at it. I try hard to not have any opinions on things I don't at all know about.
LoganDark 4y ago
> But I have to admit that regardless the hype around it I don't think that it's particularly interesting. I see it as just yet another Unix clone; with exactly zero innovation behind it. I personally think the syscall structure is quite interesting, especially the pledge & unveil taken from BSD. But that is indeed not innovative, it is just taking some really nice ideas from prior art.

emfax 4y ago

Could you expand on why you think Redox is a failure? Maybe also what you think it got right and what it got wrong?

JPLeRouzic 4y ago

>> I still remember the time when BeOS, its successor... English is not my native tongue but didn't you mean "BeOS, its predecessor" ? BeOS lived from 1995 to 2001, and Haiku development started in 2001 with a first release in 2009. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku_(operating_system)#Release_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku_(operating_system)#Relea...

still_grokking 4y ago
Oh, yes, of course! I'm also not a native speaker… I've expanded on my initial version and didn't double check the lengthy edit with some translation service because I didn't want to miss the edit window. But I guess the oversight should be clear form context. Can't edit it anyway. Thanks for pointing out this mistake! :-) (Now I'm going to check this particular word pair more thoroughly next time).

snvzz 4y ago

Go have a blast with Genode[0] and Managarm[1]. 0. https://www.genode.org https://www.genode.org 1. https://managarm.org/ https://managarm.org/

LeFantome 4y ago

SerenityOS is interesting because of its monolithic repository concept with everything from the kernel to the web browser as a single unified project. They even write their own image and video codecs and stuff like TLS and OpenGL that everybody just lifts from somewhere else. I would say that creating their own language to write the system in is pretty innovative. The power of the mono repo is really going to come through when they convert everything from C++ to Jakt. Perhaps the most impressive and innovative thing about SerenityOS is the way they are building their community though. I cannot think of another project with so many contributors developing so openly on YouTube. The rate at which the project is evolving is amazing. The SerenityOS project is extremely pragmatic so it is not going to charge off in truly experimental directions. That said, they borrow an impressive number of ideas from a fairly diverse set of influences. The pledge / unveil stuff from OpenBSD is interesting. The way they propagate errors throughout the stack is cool, and the fact that they built their own standard library for C++ is quite interesting. One area where SerenityOS may truly innovate is in the browser since the project founder used to build web browser engines for a living. If you do not think SerenityOS is interesting, maybe take a deeper look.

pjmlp 4y ago
So far they have been quite clear that there is no plan on converting everything into Jakt, because they are quite pragmantic about their need to keep using C++ in some parts.
- LeFantome 4y ago
  They have been clear that they are not even writing anything new in Jakt because it is not ready yet. If you start seeing them wrote stuff in it, you will see them re-wrote stuff too. They can make the change whenever they want because of the mono repo. You can make changes all across the project on any given check-in. As you said, it is a very pragmatic project.
still_grokking 4y ago
Sorry to be so direct but exactly the things on which you expanded here are a very large part of my deep skepticism about SerenityOS. All that NIH without improving anything on the status quo is imho pure insanity! But OK, the project is mainly meant as a "therapy" for some mental illness, so this "makes sense" actually… (Just coding without thinking or carrying is quite some fun and liberating, indeed!) Besides the crazy amount of NIH the rate at which this project evolves is another very bad sign. (Reminds me strongly of "80% boy & his Redux OS"…). If you rush everything there is no time for planing or evaluating ideas. OTOH this is of course not needed if you do not intend to innovate on anything—and just rebuild once more things that already been built hundreds of times. I think alone scope creep will be deadly to this projects in the long run. For example one of the strongest reasons for Linux's success is imho that Linux concentrated solely on the OS. Where you end up when you want to do everything at once (especially without any research projects backing that effort!) at least I'm quite sure to know. Alone building a serous programming language is a life's work! (But OK, once again, Jakt isn't serous. It's not going to be even competitive with Carbon, as I see it, which itself isn't of any interests at all besides "Google is selling" it. Jakt is just the next fun NIH project, "because we can"). Regarding the community: Well, this dude attracted quite some attention with his personal life story. People seem to feel compassionate about him. So there is a lot of momentum. And sure, he's a nice guy. Only that he's quite off to when it comes to what he's producing. (Which is once again a very good prove of the fact that social circumstances have much more weight than any technological considerations; people care in the end about people, never really about the tech). Bottom line: I came to my conclusions about SerenityOS because I've looked at it. I try hard to not have any opinions on things I don't at all know about.

LoganDark 4y ago

> But I have to admit that regardless the hype around it I don't think that it's particularly interesting. I see it as just yet another Unix clone; with exactly zero innovation behind it. I personally think the syscall structure is quite interesting, especially the pledge & unveil taken from BSD. But that is indeed not innovative, it is just taking some really nice ideas from prior art.