On 24 May 2018 at 19:45, (string-reverse "Nala Ginrut") <[email protected]> wrote: > The key reason to me is "a better free OS kernel". Linux is very > successful, and I use it everyday. I'm interested in Hurd not because > Linux is not free enough, but because I want to see a better free OS > kernel. Is Linux perfect? Of course no. Is it possible to provide better > features in the current Linux architecture? I don't think so. For such > reason, why not give microkernel another chance? >
+1 The state of the art seems to have moved so far from when the Hurd was engineered, it's a difficult choice whether to simply do the porting work to another microkernel or whether to address deep architectural concerns with fresh implementation. Richard Braun's work on x15 mach[0] is very interesting, it's a slightly smaller step than L4 would have been, but it's a very clean design. On the flip side, we've now got fairly safe low-level languages that could be used to implement essential system services. Neal's work on viengoos highlighted the value of giving the user resource management controls. Shap came back from the Midori project convinced that a better system design would be deeply asynchronous at the system call level. We've now got rump, too. I bet Samuel has some great ideas, too, with all the time he's spent on the kernel. Whichever of these directions you feel is most interesting, I encourage you to explore at your leasure. Don't let others tell you what to do or where to focus your time because it will rob you of your joy, but be aware you'll probably not get much help unless you're working on porting debian packages, or otherwise under someone's direction. [0] https://git.sceen.net/rbraun/x15.git/ -- William Leslie Notice: Likely much of this email is, by the nature of copyright, covered under copyright law. You absolutely MAY reproduce any part of it in accordance with the copyright law of the nation you are reading this in. Any attempt to DENY YOU THOSE RIGHTS would be illegal without prior contractual agreement.
