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> What if we turned everything upside down.. What if there was ONLY the SYSTEM.. And everything was a plugin, literally, everything.. Your drivers, your web bro
by dehrmann 3y ago
> What if we turned everything upside down.. What if there was ONLY the SYSTEM.. And everything was a plugin, literally, everything.. Your drivers, your web browsers your libraries, your shells and GUI and games.. All of it, plugins to the SYSTEM.. What does that even mean?
It means a microkernel.
- monocasa 3y agoOr a scheduler executive with no MMU. Something like classic macos or DOS with TSRs fits the description too. Or something like a smalltalk minicomputer or singularity/lisp that enforces separation in software.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ianai 3y agoBut seriously what if modern OSes were as responsive and resilient as QNX? Though after building a modern desktop recently, it does kind of feel like building a minimally viable desktop and mounting a secondary computer for graphics into it. At least when I think of the powering situation. So maybe a move towards a less is more/very modular OS could find some niches today. It would be awesome if graphics drivers were more like a standardized communications interface than a binary blob dependent upon oem good effort.
- snvzz 3y ago>But seriously what if modern OSes were as responsive and resilient as QNX? Look into Fuchsia, Genode, and Managarm.
- lmm 3y agoThe way I read it the post is suggesting the opposite - making the macrokernel even more macro, tightly integrating what were traditionally userspace programs with the OS proper (perhaps having everything run as a kernel module).
- esjeon 3y agoI giggled a little, but I think the post is more about desktop environment than kernel.