5 ms·

This headline was pretty much true 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago... Don't get me wrong, I think Hurd is interesting, but I seriously doubt it's going

by taylodl 9mo ago

This headline was pretty much true 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago... Don't get me wrong, I think Hurd is interesting, but I seriously doubt it's going to have a big impact on anything as it reflects the software engineering philosophies of the 1980s.

hayleox 9mo ago
The "75% of Debian archive builds" claim is exactly the same 7 years ago. In fact, look at this slide from the 2019 presentation: https://archive.fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/roadmap_for_the_hurd/attachments/slides/3270/export/events/attachments/roadmap_for_the_hurd/slides/3270/2019_02_01_fosdem_roadmap.pdf#page=8 https://archive.fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/roadmap_for_t... (page 8) It is barely distinguishable from the first slide featured in the Phoronix article from today: https://www.phoronix.net/image.php?id=2026&image=gnu_hurd_1 https://www.phoronix.net/image.php?id=2026&image=gnu_hurd_1 It seems like there has been progress on other fronts, so I'm not sure why Phoronix ran a headline focused on very old news. Interestingly, the 2018 version of the slide claims "80% of Debian archive builds"; I wonder what caused the regression. https://archive.fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/microkernel_hurd_pci_arbiter/attachments/slides/2323/export/events/attachments/microkernel_hurd_pci_arbiter/slides/2323/2018_02_03_fosdem_pci.pdf#page=26 https://archive.fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/microkernel_h... (page 26)
- philipwhiuk 9mo ago
  > so I'm not sure why Phoronix ran a headline focused on very old news. It's just coverage of FOSDEM 2026 and I guess they assumed that the FOSDEM slides would show notable changes rather than the state of play.
AtlasBarfed 9mo ago
Another example of if llms are so good. Why isn't a gap like this closed very quickly?
- digiown 9mo ago
  GNU projects and LLM contribs mix like water and oil.
hgs3 9mo ago
> reflects the software engineering philosophies of the 1980s. It has a microkernel architecture. That's already an improvement over the "modern" monolithic kernels we are stuck with today. Given Big Tech's interest in hardening security and sandboxing you'd think this would get more attention.
- wolvoleo 9mo ago
  True but it's not exactly new. I remember Andrew Tanenbaum and Linus Torvald's heated discussions in the early 90s :) Minix featured a microkernel before linux existed.
  - pjmlp 8mo ago
    Yeah, but we are still far off making it mainstream beyond some key use cases, QNX, INTEGRITY, language runtimes on top of type 1 hypervisors, all kernel extension points being pushed into userspace across Apple,Google,Microsoft offerings, Nintendo Switch,....
    - bcrl 8mo ago
      Given the tectonic shift in priorities for Linux kernel development over the past decade, I'm willing to bet that many key developers would be open to a microkernel architecture now than ~25+ years ago. CPUs now have hardware features that reduce the overhead of MMU context changes which gets rid of a significant part of the cost of having isolated address spaces to contain code. The Meltdown and Spectre attacks really forced the security issue to the point where major performance costs to improve security became acceptable in a way that was not the case in the '90s or '00s.

by taylodl 9mo ago

hayleox 9mo ago

The "75% of Debian archive builds" claim is exactly the same 7 years ago. In fact, look at this slide from the 2019 presentation: https://archive.fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/roadmap_for_the_hurd/attachments/slides/3270/export/events/attachments/roadmap_for_the_hurd/slides/3270/2019_02_01_fosdem_roadmap.pdf#page=8 https://archive.fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/roadmap_for_t... (page 8) It is barely distinguishable from the first slide featured in the Phoronix article from today: https://www.phoronix.net/image.php?id=2026&image=gnu_hurd_1 https://www.phoronix.net/image.php?id=2026&image=gnu_hurd_1 It seems like there has been progress on other fronts, so I'm not sure why Phoronix ran a headline focused on very old news. Interestingly, the 2018 version of the slide claims "80% of Debian archive builds"; I wonder what caused the regression. https://archive.fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/microkernel_hurd_pci_arbiter/attachments/slides/2323/export/events/attachments/microkernel_hurd_pci_arbiter/slides/2323/2018_02_03_fosdem_pci.pdf#page=26 https://archive.fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/microkernel_h... (page 26)

philipwhiuk 9mo ago
> so I'm not sure why Phoronix ran a headline focused on very old news. It's just coverage of FOSDEM 2026 and I guess they assumed that the FOSDEM slides would show notable changes rather than the state of play.

AtlasBarfed 9mo ago

Another example of if llms are so good. Why isn't a gap like this closed very quickly?

digiown 9mo ago
GNU projects and LLM contribs mix like water and oil.

hgs3 9mo ago

> reflects the software engineering philosophies of the 1980s. It has a microkernel architecture. That's already an improvement over the "modern" monolithic kernels we are stuck with today. Given Big Tech's interest in hardening security and sandboxing you'd think this would get more attention.

wolvoleo 9mo ago
True but it's not exactly new. I remember Andrew Tanenbaum and Linus Torvald's heated discussions in the early 90s :) Minix featured a microkernel before linux existed.
- pjmlp 8mo ago
  Yeah, but we are still far off making it mainstream beyond some key use cases, QNX, INTEGRITY, language runtimes on top of type 1 hypervisors, all kernel extension points being pushed into userspace across Apple,Google,Microsoft offerings, Nintendo Switch,....
  - bcrl 8mo ago
    Given the tectonic shift in priorities for Linux kernel development over the past decade, I'm willing to bet that many key developers would be open to a microkernel architecture now than ~25+ years ago. CPUs now have hardware features that reduce the overhead of MMU context changes which gets rid of a significant part of the cost of having isolated address spaces to contain code. The Meltdown and Spectre attacks really forced the security issue to the point where major performance costs to improve security became acceptable in a way that was not the case in the '90s or '00s.