5 ms·

It’s always heralded as a great CS debate, but Tanenbaum’s position seems so obviously silly to me. Tanenbaum: Microkernels are superior to monolithic kernels.

It’s always heralded as a great CS debate, but Tanenbaum’s position seems so obviously silly to me. Tanenbaum: Microkernels are superior to monolithic kernels. Torvalds: I agree— so go ahead and write a Production microkernel…

acmj 2y ago
People often forget the best way to win a tech debate is to actually do it. Once multiple developers criticized that my small program is slow due to misuse of language features. Then I said: fine, give me a faster implementation. No one replied.
sedatk 2y ago
> so go ahead and write a Production microkernel He has though. Tanenbaum's created the most popular production OS in the world, and it's microkernel based: https://www.networkworld.com/article/964650/minix-the-most-popular-os-in-the-world-thanks-to-intel.html https://www.networkworld.com/article/964650/minix-the-most-p...
- johnisgood 2y ago
  https://blog.minix3.org/tag/news/ https://blog.minix3.org/tag/news/ Last post is from 2016. Any news on MINIX front?
  - lproven 2y ago
    AST retired. Nobody's picked up the banner. Damned shame. https://www.osnews.com/story/136174/minix-is-dead/ https://www.osnews.com/story/136174/minix-is-dead/ Intel had profited tens to hundreds of millions of dollars from Minix 3. Minix replaced ThreadX (also used as the Raspberry Pi firmware) running on ARC RISC cores. Intel had to pay for both. If Intel reinvested 0.01% of what it saved by taking Minix for free, Minix 3 would be a well-funded community project that could be making real progress. It already runs much of the NetBSD userland. It needs stable working SMP and multithreading to compete with NetBSD itself. (Setting aside the portability.) But Intel doesn't need that. And it doesn't need to pay. So it doesn't.
    - johnisgood 2y ago
      I wish MINIX3 would pick up, it does look promising, especially looking at its features, the reincarnation and whatnot. https://wiki.minix3.org/doku.php?id=www:documentation:features https://wiki.minix3.org/doku.php?id=www:documentation:featur... :(
      - lproven 2y ago
        Well yes. I wish Intel set up a community foundation and funded it with 0.01% of what Minix 3 saved it.
- mqus 2y ago
  Is the article really right though? I imagine that much more stuff runs some linux on any machine than there are running intel processors. Even if it was true in the past, it likely has shifted in linux favor even more
  - sedatk 2y ago
    That doesn’t make the article not right for the time it was published.
bb88 2y ago
Gnu Hurd has been under development since 1990. 14 years ago (2011) this thread happened on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/edl9t/so_whats_the_deal_with_gnu_hurd_will_it_ever_be/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/edl9t/so_whats_the_d... Meanwhile in 1994 I knew people with working linux systems.
- p_l 2y ago
  Hurd failed not because of microkernel design, in 1994 multiple companies were shipping systems based on Mach kernel quite succesfully. According to some people I've met who claimed to witness things (old AI Lab peeps) the failure started with initial project management and when Linux offered alternative GPLed kernel to use, that was enough to bring the effort even more to halt.
  - RainyDayTmrw 2y ago
    Most famously these days, Mac OS (formerly known as Mac OS X, to distinguish it from all of the earlier ones) is built on top of Darwin/XNU, which descends from Mach.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  As always don't mix technical issues with human factors.

acmj 2y ago

People often forget the best way to win a tech debate is to actually do it. Once multiple developers criticized that my small program is slow due to misuse of language features. Then I said: fine, give me a faster implementation. No one replied.

sedatk 2y ago

> so go ahead and write a Production microkernel He has though. Tanenbaum's created the most popular production OS in the world, and it's microkernel based: https://www.networkworld.com/article/964650/minix-the-most-popular-os-in-the-world-thanks-to-intel.html https://www.networkworld.com/article/964650/minix-the-most-p...

johnisgood 2y ago
https://blog.minix3.org/tag/news/ https://blog.minix3.org/tag/news/ Last post is from 2016. Any news on MINIX front?
- lproven 2y ago
  AST retired. Nobody's picked up the banner. Damned shame. https://www.osnews.com/story/136174/minix-is-dead/ https://www.osnews.com/story/136174/minix-is-dead/ Intel had profited tens to hundreds of millions of dollars from Minix 3. Minix replaced ThreadX (also used as the Raspberry Pi firmware) running on ARC RISC cores. Intel had to pay for both. If Intel reinvested 0.01% of what it saved by taking Minix for free, Minix 3 would be a well-funded community project that could be making real progress. It already runs much of the NetBSD userland. It needs stable working SMP and multithreading to compete with NetBSD itself. (Setting aside the portability.) But Intel doesn't need that. And it doesn't need to pay. So it doesn't.
  - johnisgood 2y ago
    I wish MINIX3 would pick up, it does look promising, especially looking at its features, the reincarnation and whatnot. https://wiki.minix3.org/doku.php?id=www:documentation:features https://wiki.minix3.org/doku.php?id=www:documentation:featur... :(
    - lproven 2y ago
      Well yes. I wish Intel set up a community foundation and funded it with 0.01% of what Minix 3 saved it.
mqus 2y ago
Is the article really right though? I imagine that much more stuff runs some linux on any machine than there are running intel processors. Even if it was true in the past, it likely has shifted in linux favor even more
- sedatk 2y ago
  That doesn’t make the article not right for the time it was published.

bb88 2y ago

Gnu Hurd has been under development since 1990. 14 years ago (2011) this thread happened on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/edl9t/so_whats_the_deal_with_gnu_hurd_will_it_ever_be/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/edl9t/so_whats_the_d... Meanwhile in 1994 I knew people with working linux systems.

p_l 2y ago
Hurd failed not because of microkernel design, in 1994 multiple companies were shipping systems based on Mach kernel quite succesfully. According to some people I've met who claimed to witness things (old AI Lab peeps) the failure started with initial project management and when Linux offered alternative GPLed kernel to use, that was enough to bring the effort even more to halt.
- RainyDayTmrw 2y ago
  Most famously these days, Mac OS (formerly known as Mac OS X, to distinguish it from all of the earlier ones) is built on top of Darwin/XNU, which descends from Mach.
pjmlp 2y ago
As always don't mix technical issues with human factors.