4 ms·

I’ve often thought it might be time for humanity to take the lessons learned from *Nix and Windows/DOS and come up with something better.

LastTrain 4y ago
Maybe instead of knocking other’s hard work you should get busy doing that then.
- junon 4y ago
  OS Dev is a huge undertaking and not for the lighthearted, especially if you intend on having a real project as opposed to a toy.
  - _zzaw 4y ago
    Sometime in order to build the "real projects", you have to learn by building toys.
    - junon 4y ago
      Yes, that's obvious. But to construct a real OS intended for adoption and production use is a huge undertaking.
      - _zzaw 4y ago
        It certainly is. I think what's bothering LastTrain, though—and is definitely bothering me—is the kneejerk dismissal of personal projects because they're not sufficiently innovative/useful/etc. As far as I can tell, it wasn't even the VanadiumOS author who shared it here in the first place. I've noticed, and I'm not the only one, that HN has developed a particular reputation in the tech community. A number of people I know don't actually like having their work show up on "the orange site" because of that Comic-Book-Guy culture. Just seems counter to the spirit of hacking to judge somebody's experiments through the lens of a VC pitch.
        junon 4y ago
        I'm not sure what you're on about but I've not dismissed the original work at all, in any of my comments....
        spankalee 4y ago
        To csilverman in the sibling reply: it's strange that you're reading the original comment as a criticism at all. I don't see anything negative towards the posted work, just a tangential thought spurred by it.
        _zzaw 4y ago
        You didn't. But the root comment here was kind of dismissive. And it's a reaction I've seen on here before, so I guess I'm a little sensitive to it, maybe because my personal projects are the kind that would attract similar criticism if they ever showed up here.
        LastTrain 4y ago
        Constructive criticism is good but the gist of the comment I was replying to was basically “this is a stupid waste of time”. I’d like to see less of that it just stifles good conversation.
  - ofrzeta 4y ago
    Someone posted this quote by Linus Torvalds just some days ago: Nobody should start to undertake a large project. You start with a small trivial project, and you should never expect it to get large. If you do, you'll just overdesign and generally think it is more important than it likely is at that stage. Or worse, you might be scared away by the sheer size of the work you envision. So start small, and think about the details. Don't think about some big picture and fancy design. If it doesn't solve some fairly immediate need, it's almost certainly over-designed. And don't expect people to jump in and help you. That's not how these things work. You need to get something half-way useful first, and then others will say "hey, that almost works for me", and they'll get involved in the project. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34287760 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34287760
    - ihatepython 4y ago
      This does kind of explain the haphazard design of Linux
      - nix23 4y ago
        Why do you think Alan Cox said the following: “Linus is a good developer, but is a terrible engineer. I'm sure that he'll agree with me.” :)
- canadianfella 4y ago
  [dead]
yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
The problem is that 80% of the better ideas can just be bolted onto the existing systems so we can incrementally upgrade without losing compatibility and having to start from scratch.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  Pity that in some platforms, e.g. Windows, what DevDiv incrementally upgrades with .NET, WinDev undoes it with COM and C++. One of the reasons why we have all this mess with UWP, WinRT, WinUI and WinAppSDK. They could have followed Android's approach where everyone works together for that incremental upgrade, but alas.
_0xdd 4y ago
SerenityOS
_zzaw 4y ago
Going by the other projects on the author's site, it looks like their primary goal is working on stuff that interests them, not reinventing operating systems that are older than a lot of the folks on this site. I realize this is HN, but not everything needs to be an industry disrupter. Honestly, I'm here more for the weird, impractical experiments than anything else.
eric__cartman 4y ago
And redo the decades of work put into the userspace applications for existing operating systems?
- TuringTest 4y ago
  Yes. You could build compatibility layers for porting the most complex stuff, but the idea is that an advanced, better OS would make it trivial to build the most commonly used applications for everyday use, and provide benefits on top of them that would make the switch to the new system worthwhile.
nix23 4y ago
Plan9/9Front is maintained and OpenVMS comes out for x64 ~Mai ;) You just have to use it.
- LeFantome 4y ago
  Isn’t Windows NT the next generation of VMS ( rather than the other way around )?
  - nix23 4y ago
    Well Dave Cutler changed from DEC to Microsoft. VMS is the older system specialized for big servers "fast" networks, clusters and security. When Cutler went to Microsoft the restrictions where clearly the slow and small PC's (the main customers of MS), so that really "cut" the system down (pun intended). Like the Idea to implement NT as a pure microkernel, but it was just too slow for the normal home PC, and that's why NT is kind of a hybrid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Cutler#Microsoft_(1988_-_present) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Cutler#Microsoft_(1988_-_...
pjmlp 4y ago
Android and iOS, yes they rely on UNIX like kernel, no they aren't that much exposed to Objective-C, Swift, Java, Kotlin, ISO C and ISO C++ userspace frameworks and APIs, despite UNIX folks thinking otherwise. Genode OS SerenityOS BeOS/Haiku From Oberon linage, AOS is still around at ETHZ Inferno Erlang, Go, Oberon, Java and .NET targeting bare metal workloads where the runtime plays the role of the OS. And most likely a few others I have forgotten.

LastTrain 4y ago

Maybe instead of knocking other’s hard work you should get busy doing that then.

junon 4y ago
OS Dev is a huge undertaking and not for the lighthearted, especially if you intend on having a real project as opposed to a toy.
- _zzaw 4y ago
  Sometime in order to build the "real projects", you have to learn by building toys.
  - junon 4y ago
    Yes, that's obvious. But to construct a real OS intended for adoption and production use is a huge undertaking.
    - _zzaw 4y ago
      It certainly is. I think what's bothering LastTrain, though—and is definitely bothering me—is the kneejerk dismissal of personal projects because they're not sufficiently innovative/useful/etc. As far as I can tell, it wasn't even the VanadiumOS author who shared it here in the first place. I've noticed, and I'm not the only one, that HN has developed a particular reputation in the tech community. A number of people I know don't actually like having their work show up on "the orange site" because of that Comic-Book-Guy culture. Just seems counter to the spirit of hacking to judge somebody's experiments through the lens of a VC pitch.
      - junon 4y ago
        I'm not sure what you're on about but I've not dismissed the original work at all, in any of my comments....
        spankalee 4y ago
        To csilverman in the sibling reply: it's strange that you're reading the original comment as a criticism at all. I don't see anything negative towards the posted work, just a tangential thought spurred by it.
        _zzaw 4y ago
        You didn't. But the root comment here was kind of dismissive. And it's a reaction I've seen on here before, so I guess I'm a little sensitive to it, maybe because my personal projects are the kind that would attract similar criticism if they ever showed up here.
      - LastTrain 4y ago
        Constructive criticism is good but the gist of the comment I was replying to was basically “this is a stupid waste of time”. I’d like to see less of that it just stifles good conversation.
- ofrzeta 4y ago
  Someone posted this quote by Linus Torvalds just some days ago: Nobody should start to undertake a large project. You start with a small trivial project, and you should never expect it to get large. If you do, you'll just overdesign and generally think it is more important than it likely is at that stage. Or worse, you might be scared away by the sheer size of the work you envision. So start small, and think about the details. Don't think about some big picture and fancy design. If it doesn't solve some fairly immediate need, it's almost certainly over-designed. And don't expect people to jump in and help you. That's not how these things work. You need to get something half-way useful first, and then others will say "hey, that almost works for me", and they'll get involved in the project. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34287760 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34287760
  - ihatepython 4y ago
    This does kind of explain the haphazard design of Linux
    - nix23 4y ago
      Why do you think Alan Cox said the following: “Linus is a good developer, but is a terrible engineer. I'm sure that he'll agree with me.” :)
canadianfella 4y ago
[dead]

yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago

The problem is that 80% of the better ideas can just be bolted onto the existing systems so we can incrementally upgrade without losing compatibility and having to start from scratch.

pjmlp 4y ago
Pity that in some platforms, e.g. Windows, what DevDiv incrementally upgrades with .NET, WinDev undoes it with COM and C++. One of the reasons why we have all this mess with UWP, WinRT, WinUI and WinAppSDK. They could have followed Android's approach where everyone works together for that incremental upgrade, but alas.

_0xdd 4y ago

SerenityOS

_zzaw 4y ago

Going by the other projects on the author's site, it looks like their primary goal is working on stuff that interests them, not reinventing operating systems that are older than a lot of the folks on this site. I realize this is HN, but not everything needs to be an industry disrupter. Honestly, I'm here more for the weird, impractical experiments than anything else.

eric__cartman 4y ago

And redo the decades of work put into the userspace applications for existing operating systems?

TuringTest 4y ago
Yes. You could build compatibility layers for porting the most complex stuff, but the idea is that an advanced, better OS would make it trivial to build the most commonly used applications for everyday use, and provide benefits on top of them that would make the switch to the new system worthwhile.

nix23 4y ago

Plan9/9Front is maintained and OpenVMS comes out for x64 ~Mai ;) You just have to use it.

LeFantome 4y ago
Isn’t Windows NT the next generation of VMS ( rather than the other way around )?
- nix23 4y ago
  Well Dave Cutler changed from DEC to Microsoft. VMS is the older system specialized for big servers "fast" networks, clusters and security. When Cutler went to Microsoft the restrictions where clearly the slow and small PC's (the main customers of MS), so that really "cut" the system down (pun intended). Like the Idea to implement NT as a pure microkernel, but it was just too slow for the normal home PC, and that's why NT is kind of a hybrid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Cutler#Microsoft_(1988_-_present) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Cutler#Microsoft_(1988_-_...

pjmlp 4y ago

Android and iOS, yes they rely on UNIX like kernel, no they aren't that much exposed to Objective-C, Swift, Java, Kotlin, ISO C and ISO C++ userspace frameworks and APIs, despite UNIX folks thinking otherwise. Genode OS SerenityOS BeOS/Haiku From Oberon linage, AOS is still around at ETHZ Inferno Erlang, Go, Oberon, Java and .NET targeting bare metal workloads where the runtime plays the role of the OS. And most likely a few others I have forgotten.