Re: hurd does NOT need /hurd

[Marcus Brinkmann <Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de>]

On Mon, May 27, 2002 at 11:47:43AM +0100, Colin Watson wrote:
> On Mon, May 27, 2002 at 10:57:03AM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote:
> > On Sun, May 26, 2002 at 07:32:56PM -0400, Mark Eichin wrote:
> > > Umm, no?  You do *not* need root to run settrans, that's the *whole
> > > point* of this discussion...
> > 
> > ...which you have missed.
> > 
> > You do not need to be root to run settrans (hurd) or cattach (cfs).
> > 
> > You need to be "root" to install cfs, or settrans/hurd.
> 
> Since every Hurd system will have settrans (or, more relevantly, the
> infrastructure for translators), and the interesting thing for a user is
> installing new translators, you are comparing apples and oranges. It
> isn't interesting.

It isn't even true.  settrans is just a normal user space program.  What
root needs to install is the microkernel.  Of course, just a microkernel is
useless, but assuming you have some access to the microkernel system as a
user (eg, any kind of storage to run tasks from, and any way to bootstrap
your first user task), the Hurd can be run by the user without root permission.

The Hurd does not need root permission to run.  In particular, if you are a
user on any Mach based system, you can probably boot the Hurd on it (with a
bit of hackery, as you will have to port and compile the Hurd boot program
on that system if it isn't a Hurd system we are talking about).

Thanks,
Marcus

-- 
`Rhubarb is no Egyptian god.' Debian http://www.debian.org brinkmd@debian.org
Marcus Brinkmann              GNU    http://www.gnu.org    marcus@gnu.org
Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de
http://www.marcus-brinkmann.de


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