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authorThomas Schwinge <thomas@schwinge.name>2011-01-13 12:42:13 +0100
committerThomas Schwinge <thomas@schwinge.name>2011-01-13 12:42:13 +0100
commit3459cc0684ed0db666ce7d4489695219ac4f8425 (patch)
treead106e0f0557c466aae2e3896112796b5213bd0d
parent567bbad4a901026a3f8c899376c1501d4f6bafa8 (diff)
hurd/faq/which_microkernel: IRC, #hurd, 2011-01-12.
-rw-r--r--hurd/faq/which_microkernel.mdwn66
1 files changed, 64 insertions, 2 deletions
diff --git a/hurd/faq/which_microkernel.mdwn b/hurd/faq/which_microkernel.mdwn
index 10fd31b1..c5026afa 100644
--- a/hurd/faq/which_microkernel.mdwn
+++ b/hurd/faq/which_microkernel.mdwn
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-[[!meta copyright="Copyright © 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc."]]
+[[!meta copyright="Copyright © 2009, 2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc."]]
[[!meta license="""[[!toggle id="license" text="GFDL 1.2+"]][[!toggleable
id="license" text="Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license
is included in the section entitled [[GNU Free Documentation
License|/fdl]]."]]"""]]
-[[!meta title="What happened to the L4/Coyotos/viengoos micro-kernels?"]]
+[[!meta title="What happened to the L4 / Coyotos / Viengoos microkernels?"]]
L4 was promising but happened to not be suitable for implementing a general-purpose operating system on top of it. See [[history/port_to_l4]] for the historical details.
@@ -17,3 +17,65 @@ Coyotos is abandoned upstream
Neal Walfield started working on a newly designed kernel called [[viengoos|microkernel/viengoos]]. Unfortunately, he currently lacks time and the projects it paused.
In the meanwhile, people are thus continuing with [[microkernel/mach]].
+
+---
+
+IRC, #hurd, 2011-01-12.
+
+[[!taglink open_issue_documentation]]
+
+ <Pete-J> Hello i am just curious of the development of Hurd - what's the
+ current mission on the microkernel i see projects like l4 and viengoos,
+ will one of these projects replace Mach? or will you stick with Mach
+ <Pete-J> as i understand is that Mach is a first generation microkernel
+ that's very old in design and causes alot of issues
+ <Pete-J> that's where l4 and viengoos comes in - they are trying to be the
+ next generation Mach - am i correct?
+ <neal> l4 is not a drop in replacement for Mach
+ <neal> it doesn't actually do much resource management
+ <neal> for instance, you still have to implement a memory manager
+ <neal> this is where several issues are with Mach
+ <neal> l4 doesn't address those issues; it punts to the operating system
+ <Pete-J> and what about viengoos?
+ <neal> it's unfinished
+ <neal> and it implemented some untested ideas
+ <neal> i.e., parts of viengoos were research
+ <neal> there has not been a sufficient evaluation of those ideas to
+ determine whether they are a good approach
+ <Pete-J> meaning that viengoos is a research kernel that could aid Mach?
+ <neal> I'm not sure I understand your question
+ <Pete-J> Well is viengoos trying to be a replacement for Mach, or will
+ viengoos be an experiment of new ideas that could be implemented in Mach?
+ <Pete-J> i am sorry for my limited english
+ <neal> viengoos was designed with a Hurd-like user-land in mind
+ <neal> in that sense it was a Mach replacement
+ <neal> (unlike L4)
+ <neal> viengoos consisted of a few experiments
+ <neal> one could implement them in mach
+ <neal> but it would require exposing new interfaces
+ <neal> in which case, I'm not sure you could call the result Mach
+ <Pete-J> Well as i understand you develop two microkernels side by side,
+ wouldnt it be more effective to investigate viengoos more and maybe move
+ the focus to viengoos?
+ <antrik> no
+ <antrik> having something working all the time is crucial
+ <antrik> it's very hard to motivate people to work on a project that might
+ be useful, in a couple of years, perhaps...
+ <Pete-J> Well Mach is meant to be replaced one day - i see no reason to
+ keep on developing it just because it works at this moment
+ <Pete-J> *if Mach is meant to be replaced
+ <antrik> it's not at all clear that it will be replaced by something
+ completely different. I for my part believe that modifying the existing
+ Mach is a more promising approach
+ <Pete-J> as i understand man power is something you need - and by spreading
+ out the developers just makes the progress more slow
+ <antrik> but even if it *were* to be replaced one day, it doesn't change
+ the fact that we need it *now*
+ <antrik> all software will be obsolete one day. doesn't mean it's not worth
+ working on
+ <antrik> the vast majority of work is not on the microkernel anyways, but
+ on the system running on top of it
+ <Pete-J> ahh i see
+ <antrik> manpower is not something that comes from nowhere. again, having
+ something working is crucial in a volunteer project like this
+ <antrik> there are no fixed plans