On Wed Aug 31, 2005 at 22:40:40 +1000, QuantumG wrote: >Sam Couter wrote: > >>The Hurd is just a kernel (well, a microkernel and a bunch of servers >>that offer services normally provided by more traditional kernels). >>GNOME runs on the Hurd and it's about the same as GNOME on Linux or >>FreeBSD or any one of a bunch of free operating systems. I don't know if >>KDE runs on the Hurd yet, but when it does, it'll be just like running >>KDE on Linux or FreeBSD or any one of a bunch of free operating systems. >> >> > >See, this is flat out wrong. We've know since BeOS that a microkernel >makes for a better desktop operating system. The denial that we can >just keep hacking support for real time systems into monolithic kernels >is just insanity. All the arguments made for the architecture of the >Linux kernel, in particular that it's simpler and you don't need >features like kernel threads and kernel re-entry, have long since been >abandoned by the Linux community itself. So to keep arguing at this >point that Linux is using the best architecture for a kernel is >redundant. We know it's wrong. > >That is not to say that we should just throw Linux away. In fact, I >advocate the opposite. We need to refocus work on the Linux kernel and >step up the incremental migration of services out of the kernel. >There's been great strides at moving filesystems into user space >already. Moving networking and device drivers and, finally, memory >management and scheduling into userspace is the next logic step. >Unfortunately it's gunna take years.
And it should be pointed out that such research work is already being explored (by SLUGGers no less!). People should check out Peter Chubb's papers at LCA and OLS that talk about moving drivers to userlevel on Linux. Cheers, Benno -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
