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As usual I get quite hopeful when I hear about a new operating system. We so absolutely need paths to move away from what we have today. I didn't even know wha

As usual I get quite hopeful when I hear about a new operating system. We so absolutely need paths to move away from what we have today. I didn't even know what "mixed reality operating system" was so that made me hopeful. May include some nifty quantum processing. Alas, it is just stuff built on top of Android, which is built on top of the Linux kernel. Perhaps "Meta Horizon SDK for Android" would be a better label?`

snvzz 2y ago
>Alas, it is just stuff built on top of Android, which is built on top of the Linux kernel. Look into HarmonyOS, Fuchsia, LionsOS, Managarm, Haiku and Genode.
- fsflover 2y ago
  And Qubes OS.
  - snvzz 2y ago
    Qubes relies on Linux, huge TCB. Refer to Makatea[0] for Qubes reimagined on a less flawed architecture. 0. https://trustworthy.systems/projects/makatea/ https://trustworthy.systems/projects/makatea/
    - fsflover 2y ago
      It doesn't rely on Linux, it relies on Xen and hardware virtualization: https://www.qubes-os.org/faq/#why-does-qubes-use-xen-instead-of-kvm-or-some-other-hypervisor https://www.qubes-os.org/faq/#why-does-qubes-use-xen-instead...
jojobas 2y ago
What we have today is Absolutely Awesome. Even Windows.
meiraleal 2y ago
> Perhaps "Meta Horizon SDK for Android" would be a better label?` Yes, the same as Android SDK for Linux. But it became just Android.
- BlueFalconHD 2y ago
  What about "Meta Horizon SDK for Android SDK for Linux?"
- kernal 2y ago
  Let's just cut to the chase and call it the HDK.
rainsil 2y ago
What unexplored space do you think is ripe for a totally new operating system?
- lp0_on_fire 2y ago
  A space where operating systems exist to service the operator and not the OS vendor. One that isn’t just a vehicle to push ads and subscriptions to <blank>-as-a-service or otherwise act as a siphon to send telemetry up to the mothership. Yes, I know *nix exists but it’s so fractured and every little variant has its own quirks making it difficult to be a general purpose OS that the masses could adopt, IMO.
  - klabb3 2y ago
    > Yes, I know *nix exists but it’s so fractured and every little variant has its own quirks making it difficult to be a general purpose OS that the masses could adopt, IMO. Yes, but to be clear: the main hurdle for adoption is fragmentation across GUIs/installs/package management across distros, which is out of scope (for better or worse) from the POV of Linux. Linux is a technological marvel, and if “they” could sort out these issues it would be the shortest path to mainstream appeal, by far. I’m certain this is technically feasible but also extremely challenging to pull off from a leadership perspective. Unfortunately, I don’t think there is a solution the majority would embrace. There is a ton of flame wars to overcome, hills people will die on.
  - rainsil 2y ago
    It seems like if you created a new operating system to solve these problems and it gained some traction, you'd fracture the landscape even more. Unless your operating system happened to be superior to all the existing solutions in all aspects with no tradeoffs. Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
- klabb3 2y ago
  Ironically, general purpose computing. Like servers, smartphones, etc. The premise of Fuchsia, as a prominent example, is to build an OS that operates more like a sandboxed/capabilities-based microservices platform, with structured IPC across processes. All major platforms both cloud and clients (even browsers) have gone to great lengths to deliver precisely that on top of existing OSs, with many expensive layers and hacks. It would be a lot nicer to have it built into the OS. Does that mean it’s truly ripe? I don’t know.
llm_trw 2y ago
> May include some nifty quantum processing. While we're at it they might do a bit of dabbling in reversing entropy and solving the halting problem - it's only impossible in flat space-time after all.
jessriedel 2y ago
“Operating system” is being used to refer to the UI for running and managing apps (not the original under-the-hood sense of the word for how app share resources, manage security, etc.). For better or worse, that is how consumers understand it.
BizarreByte 2y ago
> We so absolutely need paths to move away from what we have today. Why though? What necessitates our move away from what we have?
- hanniabu 2y ago
  Diversity = freedom
  - aporetics 2y ago
    Nope
    - Panini_Jones 2y ago
      "Nope" doesn't really contribute to the discussion. Why does diversity not equal freedom?
sircastor 2y ago
I was amused and interested when I found out that HaikuOS is not Linux, nor even the Linux Kernel, but a reimplementation of BeOS (concepts mostly) on the NewOS kernel. I've been dwelling in some nostalgia recently and miss some of the earlier days when everything wasn't so homogenous. This is all rose-colored glasses though, as I don't miss when everything was also extremely incompatible. And slow. And expensive.
- dfex 2y ago
  > I've been dwelling in some nostalgia recently and miss some of the earlier days when everything wasn't so homogenous. You are not alone in this. I see announcements like this one from Meta and others like Oxide - companies out there having a swing in a different direction and it makes me glad that there are people out there thinking outside the monoculture that computing feels like it's become sometimes. Sure, standardisation has been good in some respects, but I feel like the incentive to really innovate (as opposed to incrementally improve) in the operating system and compute space has really dried up.
classified 2y ago
And you seriously expect an ad company to improve anything? What's Google missing?
pjmlp 2y ago
Android is already quite cool compared with what traditional OSes happen to be. For starters it is what Microsoft has failed to do with Longhorn, because contrary to having internal sabotage from the kernel team, the Android team doubled down on their efforts to make a managed userspace actually work in a mainstream product. Dalvik sucked balls against Sony and Nokia J2ME implementations, with its DEX interpreter, yet they managed to create ART with quite cool mix of JIT/AOT/PGO, and a very modern GC. Then it follows up, that for all the praise Plan 9 gets on hacker circles, Android's approach to user space closely follows on Inferno with Limbo, Plan 9's successor that many of its praisers tend to forget. Followed by being able to encapsulate Linux kernel into a micro-kernel like stack, where most drivers are process based using Android IPC to talk to the kernel, and can be written in a mix of Java, C++, and now Rust. If only they handn't screw Sun, and stepped away when the ship went down, maybe they could have saved themselves some headaches, however Google isn't really a language designer company, so maybe that was for the greater good nontheless. Ah, and using AIDL is so much better developer experience than dealing with the primitive COM tooling on Windows.
- anthk 2y ago
  Limbo and Inferno are partially alive in Go and plan9/9front. On J2ME, it worked well in legay devices; but for modern usage, Android's Java-like API was a godsend for the developers, as they could seamlessly transition from one Java-like lang to another one. Heck, J2ME interpreters for Android do exist, and I think lots of them just use shims...

snvzz 2y ago

>Alas, it is just stuff built on top of Android, which is built on top of the Linux kernel. Look into HarmonyOS, Fuchsia, LionsOS, Managarm, Haiku and Genode.

fsflover 2y ago
And Qubes OS.
- snvzz 2y ago
  Qubes relies on Linux, huge TCB. Refer to Makatea[0] for Qubes reimagined on a less flawed architecture. 0. https://trustworthy.systems/projects/makatea/ https://trustworthy.systems/projects/makatea/
  - fsflover 2y ago
    It doesn't rely on Linux, it relies on Xen and hardware virtualization: https://www.qubes-os.org/faq/#why-does-qubes-use-xen-instead-of-kvm-or-some-other-hypervisor https://www.qubes-os.org/faq/#why-does-qubes-use-xen-instead...

jojobas 2y ago

What we have today is Absolutely Awesome. Even Windows.

meiraleal 2y ago

> Perhaps "Meta Horizon SDK for Android" would be a better label?` Yes, the same as Android SDK for Linux. But it became just Android.

BlueFalconHD 2y ago
What about "Meta Horizon SDK for Android SDK for Linux?"
kernal 2y ago
Let's just cut to the chase and call it the HDK.

rainsil 2y ago

What unexplored space do you think is ripe for a totally new operating system?

lp0_on_fire 2y ago
A space where operating systems exist to service the operator and not the OS vendor. One that isn’t just a vehicle to push ads and subscriptions to <blank>-as-a-service or otherwise act as a siphon to send telemetry up to the mothership. Yes, I know *nix exists but it’s so fractured and every little variant has its own quirks making it difficult to be a general purpose OS that the masses could adopt, IMO.
- klabb3 2y ago
  > Yes, I know *nix exists but it’s so fractured and every little variant has its own quirks making it difficult to be a general purpose OS that the masses could adopt, IMO. Yes, but to be clear: the main hurdle for adoption is fragmentation across GUIs/installs/package management across distros, which is out of scope (for better or worse) from the POV of Linux. Linux is a technological marvel, and if “they” could sort out these issues it would be the shortest path to mainstream appeal, by far. I’m certain this is technically feasible but also extremely challenging to pull off from a leadership perspective. Unfortunately, I don’t think there is a solution the majority would embrace. There is a ton of flame wars to overcome, hills people will die on.
- rainsil 2y ago
  It seems like if you created a new operating system to solve these problems and it gained some traction, you'd fracture the landscape even more. Unless your operating system happened to be superior to all the existing solutions in all aspects with no tradeoffs. Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
klabb3 2y ago
Ironically, general purpose computing. Like servers, smartphones, etc. The premise of Fuchsia, as a prominent example, is to build an OS that operates more like a sandboxed/capabilities-based microservices platform, with structured IPC across processes. All major platforms both cloud and clients (even browsers) have gone to great lengths to deliver precisely that on top of existing OSs, with many expensive layers and hacks. It would be a lot nicer to have it built into the OS. Does that mean it’s truly ripe? I don’t know.

llm_trw 2y ago

> May include some nifty quantum processing. While we're at it they might do a bit of dabbling in reversing entropy and solving the halting problem - it's only impossible in flat space-time after all.

jessriedel 2y ago

“Operating system” is being used to refer to the UI for running and managing apps (not the original under-the-hood sense of the word for how app share resources, manage security, etc.). For better or worse, that is how consumers understand it.

BizarreByte 2y ago

> We so absolutely need paths to move away from what we have today. Why though? What necessitates our move away from what we have?

hanniabu 2y ago
Diversity = freedom
- aporetics 2y ago
  Nope
  - Panini_Jones 2y ago
    "Nope" doesn't really contribute to the discussion. Why does diversity not equal freedom?

sircastor 2y ago

I was amused and interested when I found out that HaikuOS is not Linux, nor even the Linux Kernel, but a reimplementation of BeOS (concepts mostly) on the NewOS kernel. I've been dwelling in some nostalgia recently and miss some of the earlier days when everything wasn't so homogenous. This is all rose-colored glasses though, as I don't miss when everything was also extremely incompatible. And slow. And expensive.

dfex 2y ago
> I've been dwelling in some nostalgia recently and miss some of the earlier days when everything wasn't so homogenous. You are not alone in this. I see announcements like this one from Meta and others like Oxide - companies out there having a swing in a different direction and it makes me glad that there are people out there thinking outside the monoculture that computing feels like it's become sometimes. Sure, standardisation has been good in some respects, but I feel like the incentive to really innovate (as opposed to incrementally improve) in the operating system and compute space has really dried up.

classified 2y ago

And you seriously expect an ad company to improve anything? What's Google missing?

pjmlp 2y ago

Android is already quite cool compared with what traditional OSes happen to be. For starters it is what Microsoft has failed to do with Longhorn, because contrary to having internal sabotage from the kernel team, the Android team doubled down on their efforts to make a managed userspace actually work in a mainstream product. Dalvik sucked balls against Sony and Nokia J2ME implementations, with its DEX interpreter, yet they managed to create ART with quite cool mix of JIT/AOT/PGO, and a very modern GC. Then it follows up, that for all the praise Plan 9 gets on hacker circles, Android's approach to user space closely follows on Inferno with Limbo, Plan 9's successor that many of its praisers tend to forget. Followed by being able to encapsulate Linux kernel into a micro-kernel like stack, where most drivers are process based using Android IPC to talk to the kernel, and can be written in a mix of Java, C++, and now Rust. If only they handn't screw Sun, and stepped away when the ship went down, maybe they could have saved themselves some headaches, however Google isn't really a language designer company, so maybe that was for the greater good nontheless. Ah, and using AIDL is so much better developer experience than dealing with the primitive COM tooling on Windows.

anthk 2y ago
Limbo and Inferno are partially alive in Go and plan9/9front. On J2ME, it worked well in legay devices; but for modern usage, Android's Java-like API was a godsend for the developers, as they could seamlessly transition from one Java-like lang to another one. Heck, J2ME interpreters for Android do exist, and I think lots of them just use shims...