3 ms·

"operating system research which we think has been dormant or stagnant for decades" Is as much of a dig on unix/linux as windows, is it not?

rbanffy 12y ago
It's a sad fact that the two dominant OSs these days are a copy of Unix and the bastard child of VMS. I'd love to see some fresh approaches to this old problem.
- kyberias 12y ago
  Oh, the old comparison of Windows NT and VMS. I never thought that was fair by a long shot. Are there some actual real evidence of NT/VMS similarities other than some of the original team members? EDIT: So you "really don't like Microsoft much". Maybe that's all I need to hear.
  - mhurron 12y ago
    http://everything2.com/title/The+similarities+between+VMS+and+Windows+NT http://everything2.com/title/The+similarities+between+VMS+an... The similarities between VMS and Windows NT DEC thought they were pretty similar.
  - rbanffy 12y ago
    I was going to point out some, but mhurron did a much better job. One of the odd things I remember is that VMS had a version of Diskeeper that predates the NT version. I don't like Microsoft, but I have no issue in recognizing their technical merits when they have some. I'm using a Microsoft keyboard right now and was, for a very long time, an MCSD. What people misinterpret as an anti-Microsoft bias is, usually, the effect of a wider perspective than the average Microsoft enthusiast.
theforgottenone 12y ago
And aapl and ibm.
noedig 12y ago
I think it is more of a dig on academic operating systems research, which some say hasn't made any major breakthroughs since the 1980's, possibly because we have been stuck on the same architecture for so long. IMO, the focus on Windows vs UNIX/Linux or HP vs MS is really missing the point though. If you build a computer as they are suggesting, using non-volatile memory without a deep memory hierarchy, and with an optical interconnect that enables low-latency memory access across a datacenter, then that changes a huge number of the assumptions that led to the operating systems we have now. In order to really take advantage of such a machine, you really need to invent new operating systems. You can hack Linux to run on it, which is what they said they are doing, but you will lose some of the benefits of the hardware because the architecture assumptions are baked into the fundamental design of existing OSes. File systems are one example that is easy to think about. Virtual memory. But consider anything that an OS does and how this new architecture changes it. Consider loading executables to start a process, for example. If there is no difference between memory and disk, then you don't even need to load executables into memory. All files would be memory-mapped in some huge global address space. Programs could jump from memory in one machine to a whole different machine (VM migration? HA?). It really changes everything. We would need new R&D, some of it very fundamental, in order to understand and build systems to take full advantage of such technology. That's all HP is saying in this announcement.

rbanffy 12y ago

It's a sad fact that the two dominant OSs these days are a copy of Unix and the bastard child of VMS. I'd love to see some fresh approaches to this old problem.

kyberias 12y ago
Oh, the old comparison of Windows NT and VMS. I never thought that was fair by a long shot. Are there some actual real evidence of NT/VMS similarities other than some of the original team members? EDIT: So you "really don't like Microsoft much". Maybe that's all I need to hear.
- mhurron 12y ago
  http://everything2.com/title/The+similarities+between+VMS+and+Windows+NT http://everything2.com/title/The+similarities+between+VMS+an... The similarities between VMS and Windows NT DEC thought they were pretty similar.
- rbanffy 12y ago
  I was going to point out some, but mhurron did a much better job. One of the odd things I remember is that VMS had a version of Diskeeper that predates the NT version. I don't like Microsoft, but I have no issue in recognizing their technical merits when they have some. I'm using a Microsoft keyboard right now and was, for a very long time, an MCSD. What people misinterpret as an anti-Microsoft bias is, usually, the effect of a wider perspective than the average Microsoft enthusiast.

theforgottenone 12y ago

And aapl and ibm.

noedig 12y ago

I think it is more of a dig on academic operating systems research, which some say hasn't made any major breakthroughs since the 1980's, possibly because we have been stuck on the same architecture for so long. IMO, the focus on Windows vs UNIX/Linux or HP vs MS is really missing the point though. If you build a computer as they are suggesting, using non-volatile memory without a deep memory hierarchy, and with an optical interconnect that enables low-latency memory access across a datacenter, then that changes a huge number of the assumptions that led to the operating systems we have now. In order to really take advantage of such a machine, you really need to invent new operating systems. You can hack Linux to run on it, which is what they said they are doing, but you will lose some of the benefits of the hardware because the architecture assumptions are baked into the fundamental design of existing OSes. File systems are one example that is easy to think about. Virtual memory. But consider anything that an OS does and how this new architecture changes it. Consider loading executables to start a process, for example. If there is no difference between memory and disk, then you don't even need to load executables into memory. All files would be memory-mapped in some huge global address space. Programs could jump from memory in one machine to a whole different machine (VM migration? HA?). It really changes everything. We would need new R&D, some of it very fundamental, in order to understand and build systems to take full advantage of such technology. That's all HP is saying in this announcement.