4 ms·

I find it interesting that this post can be taken two ways. 1. It's clear that Linux 'won' in the marketplace so we can all laugh at how wrong this guy was and

by amirmc 12y ago

I find it interesting that this post can be taken two ways. 1. It's clear that Linux 'won' in the marketplace so we can all laugh at how wrong this guy was and the curiosity of these 'microkernel' things and that portability stuff. Lols all around. 2. We've reached a point where ideas are gaining ground about immutable infrastructure, people are talking more about things with similarities to microkernels called unikernels [1] (and where they might be used [2]). Linux isn't going anywhere but these new approaches have value and were being discussed as long ago as 1992. Of course, the author got things wrong but that's par for course. It's more interesting to see ideas that are resurfacing. Incidentally, ARM was a RISC chip and now dominates Intel on mobile devices. I prefer the second approach. So to anyone poking fun at the author, please consider that maybe this is one aspect of living in the future [3], albeit much further than than most (market timing is always underrated and academics tend to think further ahead than most people). We can also remind ourselves that 'Better' is a tricky and subjective thing to define (cf VHS tapes vs Betamax). [1] http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2566628 http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2566628 [2] http://nymote.org/blog/2013/introducing-nymote/ http://nymote.org/blog/2013/introducing-nymote/ (disclaimer: I'm involved with both the above projects) [3] http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html

qznc 12y ago
> It's clear that Linux 'won' in the marketplace Arguable. There might be more instances of QNX and L4 running than of Linux. This is pretty much impossible to measure. Remember that Android smartphones have a second OS underneath or beside the Linux kernel. Apple and Microsoft use a hybrid approach, so they just do not participate in the debate. > OKL4 shipments exceeded 1.5 billion in early 2012, mostly on Qualcomm wireless modem chips. Other deployments include automotive infotainment systems. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L4_microkernel_family#Commercial_deployment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L4_microkernel_family#Commercia...
- amirmc 12y ago
  Thanks for the info. Linux certainly captured mindshare and is synonymous with the cloud these days, but I agree these things are not clear cut.
ginko 12y ago
>We've reached a point where ideas are gaining ground about immutable infrastructure, people are talking more about things with similarities to microkernels called unikernels [1] (and where they might be used [2]). Not only this. Amoeba, Tanenbaum's research OS is a distributed operating system, meaning that many devices could be used as a single system. This would be incredibly useful in our current age where everyone has a laptop, a smartphone, a tablet, and lots of other devices that need to be synched.
- qznc 12y ago
  Usually distributed OS are designed for a scenario where every device is (nearly) always on. Like a supercomputer or a LAN of desktops. Mobile devices want to be mostly off to save energy.
  - netheril96 12y ago
    Well, a new type of operating system is needed then.
jheriko 12y ago
> It's clear that Linux 'won' in the marketplace it depends a lot on what you mean by won and which marketplace you are talking about. as a desktop os linux is essentially non existent with an ever shrinking 1.5% of the market share or so as more and more regular joe consumers get machines with windows or os x preinstalled at a much faster rate than expert-level geeks are installing linux. as a software developer targetting the mainstream it is rare that targetting linux is a profitable venture, because nearly no customers use it and those that do don't spend money on software in the same way as some one living in the Microsoft or Apple ecosystems. OS X also has a tiny market share (around 4% iirc) but people who are willing to pay over the odds to have a pretty workstation seem also not afraid of spending money on software. as a server platform Linux dominates despite the best efforts of MS and Apple to try and market slightly uglier versions their consumer level desktop OS as a server product. its easier to use remotely, and can easily be configured to not rely on heavy UI features - there are even flavours that cater better to business philosophies on 'stability' (i use that term loosely) like RHEL and CentOS - also stability and open source go hand in hand, because you can fix bugs, or pay people to fix bugs allowing you to throw money at problems to fix them in a way which is impossible with the mainstream OSs as a software developer it makes sense to target linux first for your big expensive server product. if you don't then you are cutting out your customers... i don't think either of these situations has much to do with the underlying technology. its much more to do with the OS and what it provides than how it is built to achieve those aims.
- kalleboo 12y ago
  Don't forget that Android also runs on the Linux kernel and there are more Android phones than desktop PCs running any operating system.
  - digi_owl 12y ago
    Given the way Google is steering Android these days i am not sure i want it on a "desktop" any time soon. Back during early 3.x it had a spark of potential. But since then Google has done quite a bit to lock it down so that it is basically a media consumption terminal.
asuffield 12y ago
So we now live in a world where both monolithic and "microkernel" (hybrid) systems are commonplace - there's a bit shy of a billion devices running linux (android) and no shortage of windows and osx hosts around. What can we learn from this? Well, it doesn't really seem to matter whether you use a monolithic or microkernel design. They both work well enough. Driver development is hard for reasons that have got nothing to do with this, and doesn't appear to change much between the platforms. Success/popularity of operating systems appears to be determined by other factors. I'm not sure why people feel this is still worth debating. All the evidence points to it being completely unimportant.
- hristov 12y ago
  Neither Windows nor OSX are microkernels.
  - TsukasaUjiie 12y ago
    Depends on how you look at it. Darwin is based on Mach with some monolithic BSD stuff linked in, I remember reading that Windows was fairly microkernelish but they've been pushing more things to kernel space.
krick 12y ago
> Linux 'won' in the marketplace so we can all laugh at how wrong this guy was Oh, it has been a long time since 1992 and these posts by Tannenbaum are pretty famous (actually, I'm surprised it still appears on HN). So we did laugh already. Later we suddenly stopped laughing and it was more like your "second approach". But that also was quite a while ago. Next wave of philosophical though in techno society was reflecting on all these "worse in better" stuff, "MIT vs Berkley", "Lisp is older that C", "ML is 40 years old". Because, really, it's all about the same idea. And posts about "Cathedral and bazaar" and how dot com bubble destroyed the notion of sound architecture is pretty much about the same thing. So for me it isn't anymore about any new "lessons" to learn from that. Just a painful reminder on "sooner or later we'll have to throw all these tremendous work away and start anew… shall we?".
hristov 12y ago
I would very much like to laugh at Andy Tanenbaum and we all should. He deserves to be ridiculed because he was being an a-hole. He was putting down another programmer based on a theoretical mumbo jumbo when he could have proven his theories by actual programming. I think it is obvious that any scientist that can prove his theories in a practical way must do that and should not flame and criticize another. In areas where theories are harder to prove like astrophysics, social science, economics, etc. I guess people can debate and flame. We are all used to economist flame wars by now. But in areas where theories are practically provable, such criticisms are useless and idiotic. If Tanenbaum thought microkernels were so great he should have made a usable microkernel OS. This also shows a very negative practice in the software industry which should be discouraged. And this is the criticism of the thing that is working now in favor of some new shiny project that is still in development but it will be all so great when it comes out. It is a very easy pitfall to get into, because the thing working now usually has some problems and disadvantages while the shiny new thing that does not exist yet is usually perfect in every way. But in practical matters, one usually does better going with the thing working now. But worst of all, this practice of worshiping the nonexistent solution is usually used to strike down newcomers and disruptors. By the way, unikernels have absolutely nothing to do with microkernels. So, no the day of the microkernel has not arrived and there is no indication that it will come any time soon. Maybe there will be a practical working microkernel based os some day. I have no idea what will happen in a thousand years or ten thousand years. But if that happens it will be more of coincidence than evidence that Andy Tanenbaum is some kind of genius living in the future. If you have long enough time frame a lot of predictions about the future will eventually happen in one way or another. Regardless, Linus never disputed the fact that microkernels are theoretically better. He just knew how impractical they were because he actually buckled down and did the work to make a useful OS instead of bloviating on theory.

by amirmc 12y ago

qznc 12y ago

> It's clear that Linux 'won' in the marketplace Arguable. There might be more instances of QNX and L4 running than of Linux. This is pretty much impossible to measure. Remember that Android smartphones have a second OS underneath or beside the Linux kernel. Apple and Microsoft use a hybrid approach, so they just do not participate in the debate. > OKL4 shipments exceeded 1.5 billion in early 2012, mostly on Qualcomm wireless modem chips. Other deployments include automotive infotainment systems. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L4_microkernel_family#Commercial_deployment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L4_microkernel_family#Commercia...

amirmc 12y ago
Thanks for the info. Linux certainly captured mindshare and is synonymous with the cloud these days, but I agree these things are not clear cut.

ginko 12y ago

>We've reached a point where ideas are gaining ground about immutable infrastructure, people are talking more about things with similarities to microkernels called unikernels [1] (and where they might be used [2]). Not only this. Amoeba, Tanenbaum's research OS is a distributed operating system, meaning that many devices could be used as a single system. This would be incredibly useful in our current age where everyone has a laptop, a smartphone, a tablet, and lots of other devices that need to be synched.

qznc 12y ago
Usually distributed OS are designed for a scenario where every device is (nearly) always on. Like a supercomputer or a LAN of desktops. Mobile devices want to be mostly off to save energy.
- netheril96 12y ago
  Well, a new type of operating system is needed then.

jheriko 12y ago

> It's clear that Linux 'won' in the marketplace it depends a lot on what you mean by won and which marketplace you are talking about. as a desktop os linux is essentially non existent with an ever shrinking 1.5% of the market share or so as more and more regular joe consumers get machines with windows or os x preinstalled at a much faster rate than expert-level geeks are installing linux. as a software developer targetting the mainstream it is rare that targetting linux is a profitable venture, because nearly no customers use it and those that do don't spend money on software in the same way as some one living in the Microsoft or Apple ecosystems. OS X also has a tiny market share (around 4% iirc) but people who are willing to pay over the odds to have a pretty workstation seem also not afraid of spending money on software. as a server platform Linux dominates despite the best efforts of MS and Apple to try and market slightly uglier versions their consumer level desktop OS as a server product. its easier to use remotely, and can easily be configured to not rely on heavy UI features - there are even flavours that cater better to business philosophies on 'stability' (i use that term loosely) like RHEL and CentOS - also stability and open source go hand in hand, because you can fix bugs, or pay people to fix bugs allowing you to throw money at problems to fix them in a way which is impossible with the mainstream OSs as a software developer it makes sense to target linux first for your big expensive server product. if you don't then you are cutting out your customers... i don't think either of these situations has much to do with the underlying technology. its much more to do with the OS and what it provides than how it is built to achieve those aims.

kalleboo 12y ago
Don't forget that Android also runs on the Linux kernel and there are more Android phones than desktop PCs running any operating system.
- digi_owl 12y ago
  Given the way Google is steering Android these days i am not sure i want it on a "desktop" any time soon. Back during early 3.x it had a spark of potential. But since then Google has done quite a bit to lock it down so that it is basically a media consumption terminal.

asuffield 12y ago

So we now live in a world where both monolithic and "microkernel" (hybrid) systems are commonplace - there's a bit shy of a billion devices running linux (android) and no shortage of windows and osx hosts around. What can we learn from this? Well, it doesn't really seem to matter whether you use a monolithic or microkernel design. They both work well enough. Driver development is hard for reasons that have got nothing to do with this, and doesn't appear to change much between the platforms. Success/popularity of operating systems appears to be determined by other factors. I'm not sure why people feel this is still worth debating. All the evidence points to it being completely unimportant.

hristov 12y ago
Neither Windows nor OSX are microkernels.
- TsukasaUjiie 12y ago
  Depends on how you look at it. Darwin is based on Mach with some monolithic BSD stuff linked in, I remember reading that Windows was fairly microkernelish but they've been pushing more things to kernel space.

krick 12y ago

> Linux 'won' in the marketplace so we can all laugh at how wrong this guy was Oh, it has been a long time since 1992 and these posts by Tannenbaum are pretty famous (actually, I'm surprised it still appears on HN). So we did laugh already. Later we suddenly stopped laughing and it was more like your "second approach". But that also was quite a while ago. Next wave of philosophical though in techno society was reflecting on all these "worse in better" stuff, "MIT vs Berkley", "Lisp is older that C", "ML is 40 years old". Because, really, it's all about the same idea. And posts about "Cathedral and bazaar" and how dot com bubble destroyed the notion of sound architecture is pretty much about the same thing. So for me it isn't anymore about any new "lessons" to learn from that. Just a painful reminder on "sooner or later we'll have to throw all these tremendous work away and start anew… shall we?".

hristov 12y ago

I would very much like to laugh at Andy Tanenbaum and we all should. He deserves to be ridiculed because he was being an a-hole. He was putting down another programmer based on a theoretical mumbo jumbo when he could have proven his theories by actual programming. I think it is obvious that any scientist that can prove his theories in a practical way must do that and should not flame and criticize another. In areas where theories are harder to prove like astrophysics, social science, economics, etc. I guess people can debate and flame. We are all used to economist flame wars by now. But in areas where theories are practically provable, such criticisms are useless and idiotic. If Tanenbaum thought microkernels were so great he should have made a usable microkernel OS. This also shows a very negative practice in the software industry which should be discouraged. And this is the criticism of the thing that is working now in favor of some new shiny project that is still in development but it will be all so great when it comes out. It is a very easy pitfall to get into, because the thing working now usually has some problems and disadvantages while the shiny new thing that does not exist yet is usually perfect in every way. But in practical matters, one usually does better going with the thing working now. But worst of all, this practice of worshiping the nonexistent solution is usually used to strike down newcomers and disruptors. By the way, unikernels have absolutely nothing to do with microkernels. So, no the day of the microkernel has not arrived and there is no indication that it will come any time soon. Maybe there will be a practical working microkernel based os some day. I have no idea what will happen in a thousand years or ten thousand years. But if that happens it will be more of coincidence than evidence that Andy Tanenbaum is some kind of genius living in the future. If you have long enough time frame a lot of predictions about the future will eventually happen in one way or another. Regardless, Linus never disputed the fact that microkernels are theoretically better. He just knew how impractical they were because he actually buckled down and did the work to make a useful OS instead of bloviating on theory.