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It's surreal to me that this conversation still happens in these terms. People doing real work for which they need an OS don't care that QNX/HURD are microkern
by nknighthb 13y ago
It's surreal to me that this conversation still happens in these terms.
People doing real work for which they need an OS don't care that QNX/HURD are microkernels or that Linux/NetBSD aren't. They care that one solves their problem better than the other.
Nobody cares about kernel architecture unless they're writing (or learning about) kernels. Everybody else is looking for an OS that meets practical requirements. QNX's architecture might help it meet some requirements better than Linux's architecture, but the architecture itself is not a determining factor in commercial success.
- mercurial 13y agoI don't understand your argument. We are talking about kernel architecture (and specifically, monolithic kernels vs microkernels). Specifically, I brought up QNX as an example of microkernel-based OS used in the wild, as opposed to Hurd and (presumably) Minix - which gets to show that they can be made to work. However QNX is marketed is no concern of mine.
- nknighthb 13y agoFirst, my comment was not directed solely at you but at the conversation in general. Second, the original context of that conversation isn't kernel architectures, but what particular kernels "offer". Discussing kernel architectures as if they're a practical advantage is surreal.
- mercurial 13y agoYou're splitting hairs. Microkernels do offer practical advantages by virtue of their architecture, while suffering from other drawbacks again caused by their architecture.
- nknighthb 13y agoI'm not trying to "split hairs", I'm trying to address a problem that has repeatedly made my life difficult -- people seeking particular technologies instead of solutions. But since that has obviously made some people upset, I'll trouble you no more about it. I'm sorry to have intruded.
- eyko 13y agoYour life must be very difficult...
- yyqux 13y agoWhy do you automobile engineers keep talking to each other about pistons and transmissions, and all that nonsense, it's absurd. I just want a car that gets me from A to B and doesn't use too much gas. I don't see what that has to do with engine seals.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- andrewflnr 13y agoRight here and now, we're doing it because it's fun. At the end of the day, most of us go back to practical solutions, but we have to get this stuff out of our system. :)
- kybernetikos 13y agoOne of the benefits of microkernels is supposed to be their resilience (since code that would otherwise be in the kernel is now in servers and can be restarted if it goes wrong or upgraded in place without taking down the whole kernel). That sounds like a pretty good practical benefit to me.
- nknighthb 13y agoResilience is the requirement. "Microkernel" is a possible means to an end, not the end itself.
- loup-vaillant 13y agoDo we know of any other mean?
- gaius 13y agoWell, if you have X units of effort (dollars, man-years, whatever) you can choose to allocate some of it to creating a mechanism for tolerating buggy drivers, and some to debugging the drivers. Micro- vs monolithic- in the real world is an argument over this exact allocation.
- rwmj 13y agoThere are two practical problems with microkernels: (1) Hardware. Some driver locks up your PCI bus. Your whole system grinds to a halt, whether it's a microkernel or not. This could probably be solved by having hardware that doesn't suck, but unfortunately here in the real world we've settled on the cheapest option, PC hardware which does suck. (2) Division of responsibilities. Some OS structures like the process table are inherently connected to multiple components (memory management, filesystem, etc). Doing process creation or fork in a microkernel results in a flurry of internal messages between the different parts which is hard to reason about and fragile. Minix especially suffered this problem.
- zurn 13y ago
- EliRivers 13y agoThere's no such thing as real work, in much the same way that there's no such thing as the real world. Everyone creates bubbles and cushions around themselves.