Test Driving GNU Hurd, With Benchmarks Against Linux 335
An anonymous reader writes "After last week's news that GNU Hurd is coming, Phoronix set out to install Debian GNU Hurd and to provide GNU Hurd vs. Linux benchmarks. Linux was mostly faster than The Hurd while also having much better hardware support, multi-core SMP support, and other modern functionality."
A toy for now (Score:4, Insightful)
20 years of development and 10 years behind in almost every aspect. Hardware support basically non existing, no X11, but no SMTP support is what really surprised me. I though better multithread was one of advantages of the Mach architecture. Anyways, even on a single core machine Linux is faster, there wasn't a single test in which Hurd did noticeably better.
I wish them luck, but I don't think I would even be capable of installing it on any of my machines any time soon.
Re:A toy for now (Score:5, Insightful)
where's an edit button when you need one ?
Hurd is not the only thing 10 years behind.....
whooosh there goes my karma
Re:I guess it was inevitable... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hurd, DNF, Wine 1.0, Gmail out of beta, Windows running stable, grannies using Linux, video chat on handheld computers, movies commonly coming out in 3D, video games you don't play with your hands, electric cars on dealership lots, a US president who isn't a white guy...
We're in THE FUTURE. It just doesn't feel like it, because it's fuckin' lame.
Re:I guess it was inevitable... (Score:5, Insightful)
I realize this is a joke, but the comparison is surprisingly apt. Projects that are delayed like this are rarely, if ever, successful. After so long in development, half the code is probably designed for hardware that is 20 years old, and the remaining half is designed for hardware spread across those intervening 20 years. Since the project was continually under development but never released, by the time they finish updating old sections of the code, the hardware they revised it to support is already several years old. And the code that was modern is even older. And since no one is actually using it, they don't have a massive base of users modifying, testing, and updating it like real operating systems (i.e. Linux, FreeBSD, etc) do.
The result, if it ever gets released, is a cobbled together mess, most of which is outdated and barely works, and the rest is buggy and poorly coded because they were trying to shove it out the door. Any modern features that it has either don't work properly, or don't mesh with the rest of the project. Just like DNF. At this point, the Hurd developers should either admit defeat and close the project, or get enough people together that they can scrap everything, start from the ground up, and rewrite the whole thing within a few years. Otherwise, they will be constantly behind and never become relevant. Likely, they won't do this, which is why I doubt Hurd will ever really make any kind of impact. Being released might help, or it might just make people realize that this is essentially an operating system that was designed 20 years ago and should be abandoned. My money is on the latter.
Re:GNU/Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember the days when you could come to Slashdot and expect a discussion on the technical merits or demerits of a subject like an alternative operating system, with input from one or two people who really knew their onions.
I remember the days when people were technically curious about stuff which was different, just because it was different, and they wanted to know what it did and how it worked.
Where did all those people go?
Re:I guess it was inevitable... (Score:4, Insightful)
The trouble is, of course, that this 'future' is now, and we've been watching and waiting for it to get to this point for, well, all of history. And it hasn't lived up to it's hype. The tech that was X years away arrived, evaporated, or came in as expected but never actually lived up to the dream. The 'problems' we solved are replaced by new, even more threatening ones. Etc, etc.
The present will always be a day late and dollar short of future, but at least it's motivating.
Re:I guess it was inevitable... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hurd, DNF, Wine 1.0, Gmail out of beta, Windows running stable, grannies using Linux, video chat on handheld computers, movies commonly coming out in 3D, video games you don't play with your hands, electric cars on dealership lots, a US president who isn't a white guy...
For bonus points, read the litany above to the tune of "We Didn't Start the Fire".
More seriously, though, I disagree. It's not that it's lame, it's that it's half-assed.
Sure, Hurd and DNF are done. Read TFA and the reviews, respectively.
Wine is here, but there's still a ton of shit it can't run. Windows is stable, but aside from becoming more usable it's no revolutionary change over how we interact with computers compared to 15 years ago.
Grannies run Linux, but for many more serious uses it's arguably not there for many other desktop uses.
3d movies ... if you wear the special glasses and don't mind the 3d headache. Nor the price premium.
Hands free video games... great. We flail at our screens with all of our limbs now. That's an improvement? That's the best we can do with this technology?
Electric cars that are so expensive and so limited their only practical value is to prove that they can done, and to make some people feel better about their consumerism. That's not getting into the fact that we've simply shifted its carbon footprint to different places and times.
A non-white president who pushed to have the recession "officially over" two years ago, while continuing to publish the adjusted unemployment numbers introduced by the Bush regime to help hide how bad things really are. Let's not get into the multiple ongoing military actions that have actually increased instead of decreasing. New boss/old boss.
Video chat on handheld computers if you're on wifi, or if your carrier provides 4g, and if you don't mind getting raped on data charges, and if you have good network coverage, and if the other person has video, wants to use it, and has the same type of handheld OS that you do.
Yeah, we have all the things the future promised us. But none of it is done right. It's all limited, half-assed, restricted, and - in too many ways - not adding any real value because of those problems.
Re:better quit now. (Score:4, Insightful)
it's not a matter of it being fastest, it's about options.
Attacks in the IT world tend to come in the form of software patents or claims of stolen code through a proxy.
all the BSDs, Hurd, Reactos and other such projects only make for more moving targets.
if you use them or not, if you are impressed with them or not, they all still serve a purpose.
there will always be free options.
Re:I guess it was inevitable... (Score:5, Insightful)
The future is like that toy you always wanted as a kid, once you get it, it is not quite like how you hoped it would be.
Re:I guess it was inevitable... (Score:4, Insightful)
That and you got real-life forces getting in the way. We hope for a Star Trek type utopia where Tech will solve all our human problems... It doesn't and it won't.
I could see the Religious people fighting tooth and nail against the use of the Transporter, in bitter arguments for hundreds of year. I can see the Holodeck being a Red Light district of technology, perhaps leading to a population drop, or a bunch of people being hopelessly unproductive in them. Every time you go to a new planet there will be millions of microbes that think you are the newest candy, or you spread a microbe that wipes out a population.
Re:A toy for now (Score:5, Insightful)