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Isn't it common to run OSes on desktop/server environment inside hypervisors? That means the OS itself can be transparently virtualized or preempted, and access
by torginus 2y ago
Isn't it common to run OSes on desktop/server environment inside hypervisors? That means the OS itself can be transparently virtualized or preempted, and access to physical hardware can be transparently passed to the virtualized OSes. This can be accomplished today with minimal impact to performance on user experience.
The fact that this can be done with OS code not explicitly designed for this signals to me that there are no roadblocks to having a high-performing general purpose microkernel running our computers.
- vacuity 2y agoThis leads to big units of code, namely multiple OSes, whereas the ideal is being able to use as finely granular units as developers are able to stomach. For example, Xen can work around the issue of device drivers by hosting a minimal OS instance that has drivers, but it is better to be able to run drivers as individual processes. This reduces code duplication and performance overhead.
- torginus 2y agoYou're absolutely right but I was making the point that there's demonstrably no significant downsides to running driver/kernel code in less privileged mode, rather than Ring 0.