4 ms·

I wonder if we can't do something much better than the old UNIX paradigm today. 25 years ago there was an avalanche of new operating systems and if somebody as

I wonder if we can't do something much better than the old UNIX paradigm today. 25 years ago there was an avalanche of new operating systems and if somebody asked me at that time, I was sure we will have much better operating systems in the future using fresh ideas. I am not saying UNIX is bad, just that I would like to see some advancements in the OS area, beside improving UNIX kernels and APIs.

cenamus 6mo ago
If you haven't already, take a look at Plan 9, and maybe Rob Pikes talk "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: The Unix Legacy"
- clan 6mo ago
  I tried but could only find the slides: https://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/good_bad_ugly/ https://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/good_bad_ugly/ Do you have a link?
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
  - layer8 6mo ago
    The slides are all there is.
merqurio 6mo ago
The lack of vertical integration in the modern stack is surprising. We’ve spent 30 years treating the UNIX paradigm as the "end of history," while burying ourselves in layers that add zero mechanical value. I initially thought the containerization movement of the early 2010s would be the first step toward redefining the OS—a way to finally slim things down. Instead, it just became a more efficient way to pack up the same baggage. We created a "reduction" in deployment complexity, but we haven't seen a continued effort to use those tools to actually change the paradigm. I expected vertically integrated systems to become the norm by now—where building an executable would be an experience similar to containerization, but resulting in a lean, data-centric unikernel. Instead, we are burning CAPEX on YAML sidecars in K8s clusters and N-tier abstractions that exist solely due to the large heterogeneity of the deployments that they never should have entered in the first place. We are spending more energy on the friction between layers than on the actual business of computation. I was hoping for a return to sanity with the DBOS [1] research, looked like an attempt to rethink systems from first principles. But it seems that effort hasn't fully kicked off in the way the industry desperately needs. [1]: https://dsail.csail.mit.edu/index.php/dbos/ https://dsail.csail.mit.edu/index.php/dbos/
- tosti 6mo ago
  The only thing worse than spaghetti code is spaghetti services. Ask yourself which one is easier to diagnose and debug.
snvzz 6mo ago
For the state of the art, look at seL4[0], LionsOS[1] and Genode[2]. 0. https://sel4.systems/ https://sel4.systems/ 1. https://www.lionsos.org/ https://www.lionsos.org/ 2. https://genode.org/ https://genode.org/
- hulitu 6mo ago
  > 0. "When running on real hardware console output will be over serial." > 1. Seems to be a variant of "0" running on "Odroid-C4." > 2. https://genode.org/ https://genode.org/ This one looks more polished.
  - ComputerFido 6mo ago
    That's because lions os is more focused on POS machines and other embedded platforms for now, its not a general purpose OS (yet) and that doesn't mean there isn't much to be learned from its design
kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 6mo ago
The problem is if you lack backwards compatibility, you won't see people migrate to it. At best that means you need a big emulation layer; at worst your OS isn't different enough to be worth the switch.
- ciupicri 6mo ago
  Hardware compatibility too.
hulitu 6mo ago
> I would like to see some advancements in the OS area, beside improving UNIX kernels and APIs Most of the people today are afraid to build OSs so they stick to virtual machines. An OS without drivers is not an OS.
sillywalk 6mo ago
> 25 years ago there was an avalanche of new operating systems Which ones? I can only think of maybe Microsoft Singularity in 2003, and hobby OS Syllable. Neither were particularly innovative - the managed code thing had been done before with Inferno, and Syllable was heavily inspired by BeOS.

cenamus 6mo ago

If you haven't already, take a look at Plan 9, and maybe Rob Pikes talk "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: The Unix Legacy"

clan 6mo ago
I tried but could only find the slides: https://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/good_bad_ugly/ https://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/good_bad_ugly/ Do you have a link?
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- layer8 6mo ago
  The slides are all there is.

merqurio 6mo ago

The lack of vertical integration in the modern stack is surprising. We’ve spent 30 years treating the UNIX paradigm as the "end of history," while burying ourselves in layers that add zero mechanical value. I initially thought the containerization movement of the early 2010s would be the first step toward redefining the OS—a way to finally slim things down. Instead, it just became a more efficient way to pack up the same baggage. We created a "reduction" in deployment complexity, but we haven't seen a continued effort to use those tools to actually change the paradigm. I expected vertically integrated systems to become the norm by now—where building an executable would be an experience similar to containerization, but resulting in a lean, data-centric unikernel. Instead, we are burning CAPEX on YAML sidecars in K8s clusters and N-tier abstractions that exist solely due to the large heterogeneity of the deployments that they never should have entered in the first place. We are spending more energy on the friction between layers than on the actual business of computation. I was hoping for a return to sanity with the DBOS [1] research, looked like an attempt to rethink systems from first principles. But it seems that effort hasn't fully kicked off in the way the industry desperately needs. [1]: https://dsail.csail.mit.edu/index.php/dbos/ https://dsail.csail.mit.edu/index.php/dbos/

tosti 6mo ago
The only thing worse than spaghetti code is spaghetti services. Ask yourself which one is easier to diagnose and debug.

snvzz 6mo ago

For the state of the art, look at seL4[0], LionsOS[1] and Genode[2]. 0. https://sel4.systems/ https://sel4.systems/ 1. https://www.lionsos.org/ https://www.lionsos.org/ 2. https://genode.org/ https://genode.org/

hulitu 6mo ago
> 0. "When running on real hardware console output will be over serial." > 1. Seems to be a variant of "0" running on "Odroid-C4." > 2. https://genode.org/ https://genode.org/ This one looks more polished.
- ComputerFido 6mo ago
  That's because lions os is more focused on POS machines and other embedded platforms for now, its not a general purpose OS (yet) and that doesn't mean there isn't much to be learned from its design

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 6mo ago

The problem is if you lack backwards compatibility, you won't see people migrate to it. At best that means you need a big emulation layer; at worst your OS isn't different enough to be worth the switch.

ciupicri 6mo ago
Hardware compatibility too.

hulitu 6mo ago

> I would like to see some advancements in the OS area, beside improving UNIX kernels and APIs Most of the people today are afraid to build OSs so they stick to virtual machines. An OS without drivers is not an OS.

sillywalk 6mo ago

> 25 years ago there was an avalanche of new operating systems Which ones? I can only think of maybe Microsoft Singularity in 2003, and hobby OS Syllable. Neither were particularly innovative - the managed code thing had been done before with Inferno, and Syllable was heavily inspired by BeOS.