GNU Hurd 0.6 Released 229
jrepin writes It has been roughly a year and a half since the last release of the GNU Hurd operating system, so it may be of interest to some readers that GNU Hurd 0.6 has been released along with GNU Mach 1.5 (the microkernel that Hurd runs on) and GNU MIG 1.5 (the Mach Interface Generator, which generates code to handle remote procedure calls). New features include procfs and random translators; cleanups and stylistic fixes, some of which came from static analysis; message dispatching improvements; integer hashing performance improvements; a split of the init server into a startup server and an init program based on System V init; and more.
Mandatory xkcd (Score:5, Funny)
http://xkcd.com/1508/ [xkcd.com]
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2060: the year of the GNU Hurd desktop?
Re:Mandatory xkcd (Score:5, Funny)
Well, re-read the summary. They introduced a real SysV init.
Systemd integration is the obvious next step for HURD.
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This is about GNU Hurd -- everything is a userspace process.
(And, of course systemd is a userspace process on Linux anyway).
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Because learning new software is haaaaarrrd! Much easier just to complain about it.
Re:Mandatory xkcd (Score:5, Informative)
Actually I was pretty happy with the systemd learning curve. What I wasn't happy about was not being able to figure out why my network interface insisted on getting a DHCP address despite the fact I had explicitly disabled DHCP and assigned a static IP address to it via the unit files, because *there was no log of what unit/configuration files were being executed/read and when*, and - as far as I'm aware - there is no way to enable logging or figure out exactly what is going on.
And just think, with System V Init or RC scripts I could have just added a few "echo" statements to figure out what was going on instead of Googling for several hours until I found what the actual problem was.
THAT is what is stupid about systemd.
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Okay, help me understand. Why is the above post marked troll? Someone asked why the hate for systemd and the parent post gives a rational response why he hates systemd, complete with example. If you feel that he was wrong (or just being an idiot about not knowing what to do), why not state you should have fill in the blank here and make him look like an idiot versus marking him as a troll? That way everyone gets the advantage of why you think he's trolling.
I guess I got a partial answer in that the ne
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Why is the above post marked troll?
Maybe because people are getting tired of systemd posts on every single story, regardless of whether it is a story about the latest news from the LHC or an update on the new Star Wars movie. They are not simply off-topic posts, but are like are the racist or anti-feminist rant posts that are also made trying to get people arguing about off-topic BS, i.e. trying to troll for a reaction.
why not state you should have fill in the blank here and make him look like an idiot versus marking him as a troll?
The post seems to follow a common pattern of people claiming it can't log stuff that it can log. For the first couple mont
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Learning new software because OMGSHINYNEWPONIES, however? Fuck that. Particularly when the new ponies merely usurp preexisting functionality into a more fragile, unrecoverable environment. When the new ponies mean relatively minor configuration tweaks mean a reboot. When the new ponies speak a language only they can understand, and to hell with
Re:Mandatory xkcd (Score:4, Interesting)
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And...it's obvious you've never administered a systemd box....or tried...or even read about systemd or unit files/services.
It's so ridiculously easy to make nice clean dependencies so that my service starts up when it should only when it should, without needing anything more than VIM to write them in maybe 10 lines per unit file.
For example, I have a service that just runs a binary (an rpc type server). There's a single line, in the *text* file (because that's all there is), telling it that when the binary
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How does any of this address parent's question ? How can he "do something as simple as changing my DNS servers" ?
The same way as before systemd came on the scene (unless your distro has changed things at the same time - and network settings are something distros do seem to like to move around from release to release - but systemd doesn't, as far as I'm aware, touch the DNS settings at all!)
Re:Mandatory xkcd (Score:5, Informative)
Well, I dislike it because it makes it much harder to administer a box as a UNIX-type machine with a simple text editor. Now it seems like I'm stuck with meta-scripts invoking meta-scripts invoked by other scripts to do something as simple as changing my DNS servers.
I run Fedora 21, a systemd distro. You want to change your dns servers on Fedora 21?
You can use the Network GUI thing nm-connection-editor or whatever equivalent your desktop uses.
Or if you prefer the terminal or console you can use nmtui which is the same thing in a terminal/console
Or you can /etc/resolv.conf That still works. You might still need to reset the connection after the change.
vim
Or you can:
nmcli con mod connection-name ipv4.dns "8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4"
Re:Mandatory xkcd (Score:5, Insightful)
That's why people want systemd. If I look at sysvinit scripts, there are a ton of magic stuff going on that I don't know, and maybe nobody knows. On Ubuntu 12.04 the sysvinit script for Apache is over 7000 bytes long, and it includes bad stuff like "# wait until really stopped" with a loop of kill and sleep. The ClamAV init script is even bigger, over 9000 byes long. Is there any maintainer who really knows what it does?
Re:Why do people dislike systemd so much? (Score:4, Informative)
The reasons for disliking it vary, but there is at least one common thread among those who are upset about it: Systemd is being shoved down their throats, in that several of the most widely used, widely loved, deeply entrenched linux distributions have announced that they are adopting it. Many people who use those distributions do so for very good reasons, and since there are no equivalent alternatives, these people are being forced to either accept systemd (which will cause them unwanted trouble) or migrate to an inferior distribution (which will also cause them unwanted trouble). That kind of thing is enough to piss anyone off.
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is being shoved down their throats
Making no comment on the quality, intention or target of the parent, but regarding what I quote above: Is this not supposed to drive you to the greatest virtue of OSS?
Isn't the whole idea between (F)OSS to make it your own? In modern parlance: fork it. You don't like systemd? Fine, fork the distro and do whatever you want with it.
What I've gather from the whole systemd hatred is that a lot of people hate it, and would rather spend their time ranting about their hate than either fixing their complaints or fo
Re:Why do people dislike systemd so much? (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is when you fork your own distro you quickly discover that using systemd is the easiest way to maintain it. It isn't a coincidence that medium and small distros like Arch Linux picked it up in addition to the big boys. Unit-files save package maintainers boatloads of time they used to spend having to writing and maintaining initscripts a lot of which is copypasta boilerplate anyway but its usually distro specific copypasta.
This is the source of a lot of the strife in my opinion. The people who actually do work to maintain distros like systemd, the users not so much.
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Been a while since I had to do it, but I don't recall it being that hard. I did have to look at a book.
But that's not the point. If systemd was just an init system and nothing but an init system, so help it God, people could either take it or leave it. They'd have the choice, one way or the other.
The problem is that when it has dependencies on your window manager, microwave & healthcare plan you can't simply unplug it and replace it with
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No, it does not. The Window Manager have dependency on systemd, not the other way around. If the Gnome developers deciding that they need systemd, it's not systemd fault. You are free to open a bug ticket, but in the end it's the decision of the Gnome developers to use a particular technology.
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Re:Mandatory xkcd (Score:5, Insightful)
There are many reasons:
It doesn't play well with others. It works well enough with a use case that exactly matches the expectations of the developers, but put a toe outside that and you're in for some genuine hell. It takes a nice modular system and turns it into an all or nothing hairball of dependencies.
People keep claiming it's simple, but they never seem to notice the big pile of crap in /lib/systemd, /var/lib/systemd, etc etc.
It takes a joke like the "COME FROM" statement and actually implements it!
It won't quit metastasizing.
There is nothing it does that couldn't be implemented in a truly modular and far less invasive way.
It's a solution looking for a problem.
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Why do people dislike systemd so much?
Some Linux users are a bit like the Amish.
Re:Mandatory xkcd (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do people dislike systemd so much?
It is largely down to terrible marketing and poor public relations. We all need to have someone to hate.
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So that's why that crap is showing up? It doesn't even say what the error was.
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error pop-up messages every time I boot
And, what are they?
I seriously ask because are the errors real or are they because of systemd
I'm primarily a windows guy, but I run ubuntu 14 server in a VM, and I don't see OS level errors ever.
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yep kind of what went through my mind when I read the summary, I was was thinking of that old Star Trek episode where the Voyager probe had evolved into a big super computer and what not and I figured the first hardware running Hurd 1.0 should look just like it.
http://scifi.stackexchange.com... [stackexchange.com]
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That was actually the Star Trek the Motion Picture but I'll not demand your geek card on the grounds that it was pretty forgettable.
Both users (Score:5, Funny)
It was rumored that both users could be hurd rejoicing.
Re:Both users (Score:5, Funny)
So its user base has doubled? Amazing!
Microkernal Boner (Score:3, Funny)
These days you don't see the same hype around microkernals that you did back then. So we should probably warn the HURD team: If your boner for microkernals lasts more than 25 years, you should probably consult a physician.
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From what I remember, microkernels were just too slow.
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QNX, Nemesis, K42 and L4 based systems shows that to be false.
Re:Microkernal Boner (Score:5, Informative)
If your boner for microkernals lasts more than 25 years, you should probably consult a physician.
I recommend a look at Andrew S Tannenbaum's baby:
MINIX 3 is a free, open-source, operating system designed to be highly reliable, flexible, and secure. It is based on a tiny microkernel running in kernel mode with the rest of the operating system running as a number of isolated, protected, processes in user mode. It runs on x86 and ARM CPUs, is compatible with NetBSD, and runs thousands of NetBSD packages.
Minix [minix3.org]
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Aah, I remember back in the late 80's and early 90's everyone had a boner for microkernels. IBM even gave it a try, attempting to port OS/2 over to a microkernel so they could run it on Intel and PowerPC platforms. At one point, IBM's strategy was that they were going to build OS/2 around a microkernal and then just run THAT on all their hardware, with multi-user and security features added or removed as needed. Well, very long story, very long, they never could get it to work.
Depends on what you mean by that. They couldn't simply port stuff to the new microkernel, AIX, OS/400 etc. wasn't suitable to move to the new kernel. One of the big problems IIRC was endianess.
When the grand unified theo^H^H^H^HOS didn't work out it all fell apart. This in combination with the failure of PPC as a new personal computer platform, the disinterest of others to use the Workplace OS kernel, the failure of Taligent and a lot of other things made sure the project was canceled.
But OS/2 was ported an
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That explains why Windows NT and OS X never got anywhere, considering that one was based on Mach and the other actually uses Mach.
Now, in Windows NT and OS X all the modules ran in the same address space. But they didn't call each other directly. They used the same generic messaging API that modules would from user space, there's just wasn't less overhead in passing the messages. But those examples are ancient history.
Not sure what "modules" you're referring to, but if you're referring to "modules" such as network protocols and file systems in OS X, they most definitely are called directly from the system call layer. Go take a look at the kern [apple.com], net [apple.com], and vfs [apple.com] directories of XNU, as well as the netinet [apple.com] directory of XNU and the source to the FAT file system kernel module [apple.com] for examples of code that plugs into the BSD-flavored socket layer and VFS mechanism.
As for the drivers they sit atop, those are called by Boring O
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Windows NT was based on a modified VMS design combined with microkernel ideas. But it never was based on or even inspired by Mach.
And while OS X does use Mach it isn't Mach - it just uses it for some functionality, not as a kernel proper.
Oh and your idea that either of them uses a generic IPC design is wrong too. QNX does though.
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What? QNX isn't inspired by Minix - it was released 5 years before Minix!
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QNX is a commercially-successful, relatively old pure microkernel, inspired from Minix
That's an amazing feat of MINIX considering QNX was released in 1982 and MINIX in 1987.
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FreeBSD never used the Mach kernel at all. Where ever did you get such nonsense?
0.6? Are you serious? (Score:5, Insightful)
They announced work on Hurd when I was still in university. I've worked a career, ended up disabled, retired, and spent years on a pet project since then, producing 13 point releases. Over 30 years have gone by.
Yet they've still only reached release 0.6? So one decimal point release every FIVE YEARS?
Jesus.
Stick a fork in this project.
It's done -- as in dead. Pushing up daisies. Pining for the fjords. Defunct. Deceased. Non functional.
It's not even worthy of being called a pipe dream any more. Even "Duke Nukem' Forever" beat them to the punch, and everyone gave up on that project long before it was released.
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6 years ago I went to a speech given by Richard Stallman. The very first question someone asked was about the status of Hurd. He sighed, then proceeded to answer
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But what was his answer?
Re:0.6? Are you serious? (Score:5, Funny)
He hasn't finished his answer yet. Check back in a few years.
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If the problem is solved, then move the development focus elsewhere. And I thought that FSF didn't actually like the idea of GPL2-only things?
However, the FSF development focuses are odd and abandoned.
For years a Skype-replacement was asked for. Apart from game-server-oriented once like Mumble, I can't see a viable OS alternative that works cross-platform, with video, etc. We could say that Jabber's use by Google Chat was the replacement but - again - why are we then continuing on the others?
For years, a
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No, but you can say "This isn't a priority any more, we don't think GNU Hurd got where it needs to be, we think your time is better spent elsewhere".
It won't be long before it's either forked (and thus no longer a burden) or abandoned.
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They announced work on Hurd when I was still in university. I've worked a career, ended up disabled, retired, and spent years on a pet project since then, producing 13 point releases. Over 30 years have gone by.
Yet they've still only reached release 0.6? So one decimal point release every FIVE YEARS?
Jesus.
Stick a fork in this project.
It's done -- as in dead. Pushing up daisies. Pining for the fjords. Defunct. Deceased. Non functional.
It's not even worthy of being called a pipe dream any more. Even "Duke Nukem' Forever" beat them to the punch, and everyone gave up on that project long before it was released.
What do you want to name the fork? I vote for flock.
I don't think that there ever was supposed to be a Duke Nukem Forever. It was supposed to be a joke, as in, no game development would ever happen, so we would be waiting forever. Unfortunately someone else ended up with the rights to the franchise and didn't realize this.
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Even if it had been released as 1.0 it would still be as useless and irrelevant as it is at 0.6. Hurd users can likely be counted on a single hand at this point in time.
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It may be irrelevant now, but it could become very relevant from one day to another if Microsoft decided to attack Linux, either directly or indirectly indirectly (e.g. by funding SCO again), in order to grab royalties and thereby delay their own inevitable demise. That's not such an unlikely scenario, and it seems good to have something else up one's sleeve...
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Maybe it'll beat Plan 9 someday. (Score:2)
Even Plan 9 was being used commercially years ago. It's disturbing to think that plan 9 is being used more than HURD.
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The version number is a poor argument. Enlightenment was at 0.16 when I was in college 15 years ago and 0.19 today, but progress has been made and people still use it. The problem with hurd is it's not in a realistically usable state yet.
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Not every open source project has to be going somewhere. If people enjoy working on it as a hobby, good for them. I've written metric tonnes of code that has no real purpose or value beyond the enjoyment I got from creating it.
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I fail to see how forking GNU would help.
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Yeah, but they were the ones griping about Linux and claiming that they were going to replace Linux.
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Yeah, but they were the ones griping about Linux and claiming that they were going to replace Linux.
[citation needed]
Too bad... (Score:5, Funny)
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GNU/Hurd: 2060 or Bust!!
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Probably stings even worse that Hurd is so useless that even RMS won't use it.
At this rate... (Score:2)
We'll have a real, honest-to-goodness 1995 level OS in time for 2045!
Interesting discussion (Score:5, Insightful)
- internet meme repeater ("year of Linux on the desktop", "stallman eats his own toes", "thou shalt not compare to nazi");
- xkcd repeater (its output is prefixed by the string "obligatory" and displays a strong prevalence of this one [xkcd.com]);
- project deprecator ("this software is so stupid, I could write a better one with one arm tied behind my back, except I'm too smart to actually do it");
- Google/Apple/Microsoft PR ("it's not Google who kills kittens! It's their subcontractors!");
and, last but not least,
- Slashdot deprecator ("slashdot is no longer a nice site to read these days").
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101 posts and not a single one with technical content.
You must be new here.
Ah ha! There's another one, it has to have a you-must-be-new-here generator module.
Also it needs to have a module that does systemd posts.
Obligatory slashdot referencing xkcd: https://xkcd.com/301/ [xkcd.com]
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Is there a suppository for this yet? I want to contribute a few modules of my own:
- Dice deprecator
- Grammar checker for the summary that generates complaints
- Men's Rights Activist (printf("help! help! I'm being repressed!"))
- Elon Musk fanboy
- Ayn Rand bot (all problems are due to the government/taxes/unions)
I expect that Microsoft and the NSA will throw in a few astroturfing patches too.
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It's because HURD is nothing but a laughingstock at this point.
Does it now support HDDs larger than 2 GB? (Score:5, Insightful)
Does it now support HDDs larger than 2 GB? I'm not even joking here.
Last time I heard (like 10 years ago or so) it was a theorists wet dream but basically unusable.
What's the state of things with Hurd nwo? Is it usefull already?
What are big steps Hurd still needs to take to be ready for prime time?
What are the plans? When are we there?
Please note: I have no problem replacing Unix with something better, like ome coolDMI [wikipedia.org] thing where everything isn't a file but an object and the system is cleanly designed from top to bottom and back. Top notch but everything modifiable. But it has to be real-world usable and useful. Until then I'm sticking with *nix derivates such as OS X on Apple hardware or some x86 Linux like Debian or Ubuntu on ThinkPads.
Could someone give some enlightenment on this issue?
32 bit? (Score:2)
innovation (Score:2)
init? Why not systemd?
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HURD : a [H]urd of [U]nix [R]eplacing system[D]s
Re:systemd (Score:4, Informative)
From the GNU Hurd Wiki page [wikipedia.org]:
It's time [to] explain the meaning of "Hurd". "Hurd" stands for "Hird of Unix-Replacing Daemons". And, then, "Hird" stands for "Hurd of Interfaces Representing Depth". We have here, to my knowledge, the first software to be named by a pair of mutually recursive acronyms.
—Thomas (then Michael) Bushnell
Just a theory (Score:2)
Perhaps the recursion in "Hurd" is an endless one. Which would adequately explain why the development process never runs to completion. OTOH, if they had named it something that's merely vain rather than recursive like...I dunno..."Ricux", maybe it would be finished by now.
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I got the joke. I just didn't laugh.
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USB support only a few years ago? And there are people who expect Hurd to be taken seriously? Mind boggling...
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Sure, but even toy OSes like MenuetOS have had USB support for longer than Hurd.
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Writing drivers isn't hard.
But for the broader acceptance of an OS, one needs a whole shitload of them.
In the past, a computer with a half dozen devices was "packed". Today? A cheap tiny ARM SoC easily runs up to 30+ built-in devices.
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Try writing an opengl driver for a modern gpu..
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opengl driver
3D graphics is an outlier in the driver development.
But for a useable desktop, 2D graphics is sufficient. The 2D is commonly supported via GPU's ROM and as such implementing a 2D driver isn't hard.
Even 3D in itself isn't as hard. The problem is that games require (A) lots of edge cases optimized and (B) huge number of acceleration features implemented.
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Re:I want to try it (Score:4, Interesting)
Ah, it's turned into a "let'smake our selves feel important by shitting on someone't hobby" day.
Yeah USB only a few years ago. Their goal is to write a microkernel OS and figure out how to make it work well for a UNIX like system with far more felxibility. The feature list and malleability of the system is impressive.
If they spent all their times on drivers and none on the base OS, they'd have yet another OS which is quite similar to all the others out there in terms of features. Their goal is not to get acceptance from random bitter blowhards like yourself on the internet.
End result: they've contributed more to the world than you ever will.
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For such a tiny developer base, writing drivers is a wasted effort if hardware has a Linux driver available under a compatible license.
What they ought focus on is a compatibility sandbox to load an arbitrary Linux kernel module and only then write *native* drivers where it makes architectural sense for performance or security reasons.
Re:I want to try it (Score:4, Interesting)
Well Hurd did not get the developer attention that Linux got. Obviously, this means that progress in Hurd is going to be slower than Linux.
MenuetOS has less than a handful of developers and yet has had USB support for at least 7 years now.
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Why don't you go help, then?
Because it would be a complete waste of time. No one uses the Hurd and no one ever will.
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I'm sure the other Hurd user must be might impressed.
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Cool goalpost shifting. Stop trying to make excuse for the fact that the Hurd team is simply incompetent.
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What do you mean shifting?
You first claimed all the Hurds problems were lack of developers yet I can name dozens of toy OSes with USB support that predate Hurd's support by years if not almost a decade. Then you just claimed it was all due to their design, yet MINIX3 has pretty much the same design has supported USB for most of its life.
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+1 underrated.
Here it is, everyone. Your escape pod!
The only downside is it's kinda cramped in there with RMS.
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dude, shut up
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Oh I don't know, that was one of the best flame bait comments I've seen in a while. It was damn near poetic.
Re:For me, there are two questions. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not good enough. (Score:3)
Who the hell works on the 99% of open source software that isn't popular, and why do they care? Because they do.
Show me some proof that anyone cares enough to drive GNU/Hurd to a 1.0 release.
Richard Stallman founded the GNU project in September 1983 with an aim to create a free GNU operating system. Initially the components required for kernel and development were written: editors, shell, compiler and all the others. By 1989, GPL came into being and the only major component missing was the kernel.
In 2010, after twenty years under development, Stallman said that he was ''not very optimistic about the GNU Hurd. It makes some progress, but to be really superior it would require solving a lot of deep problems'', but added that ''finishing it is not crucial'' for the GNU system because a free kernel already existed (Linux), and completing Hurd would not address the main remaining problem for a free operating system: device support.
GNU Hurd [wikipedia.org]
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well, then there's the oss written for some foundation or another for extracting pocket money from said foundation.... happens more than you would think.
Re:For me, there are two questions. (Score:5, Insightful)
Linus (impatient with the pace of HURD) developed a quick and dirty kernel that a Unix user land could be built on top of. He took a lot of shortcuts, he didn't think too much about portability and basically just made a beeline for the end line - to get a shell and hence other stuff running over a kernel. The kernel filled out and became portable as the project gained momentum and volunteers.
Whereas HURD got stuck up its own ass for correctness and politics. And that's even before Linux existed as a thing. It's hardly a surprise that when Linux did appear that people jumped ship.
It's true there was a debate about micro kernel designs but that alone doesn't explain HURD's failure.
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I think it's a good question, and they're both questions; no one suggested that they stop working on the project.
Why is it a good question? Why do we still read human interest stories? I think it's fascinating to know who is doing this work, and why.