Re: What is hurd?
On Tue, Aug 25, 1998 at 09:54:11AM +1200, AJT60@student.canterbury.ac.nz wrote:
>
> I've browsed through the Hurd faq, but I'm still not clear exactly what
> advantages Hurd has over the Linux kernel. The FSF say that when they
> decided to continue Hurd development in 1990 once they heard about Linux,
> Linux was not portable and didn't scale well (esp. to multiprocessor
> machines). That's not true anymore (although maybe the Hurd can do it
> better?).
Hello,
I´m not a kernel expert, so I´ll not claim any technical knowledge
about advantages or disadvantages of kernel design.
But what is heavier, one pound of steel or one pound of feathers?
You can only make an intelligent decision if you
consider the tasks the software shall fullfill. The Hurd and the Linux
kernel are fundamentally different in design, and they will both serve
different needs.
In fact, they will also share some code. Currently, the Hurd uses a lot of
the Linux hardware drivers. the choice between Linux and Hurd is probably
not even exclusive (although it´ll require a reboot to switch kernels). With
binary compatibility, the user will have a choice to switch kernels (how far
this can be supported I can´t tell. The Hurd will be able to run Linux
binaries at least).
Sorry Andrew, if I can´t tell you about the multiple kernel architectures
and their advantegs and disadvantages. What is important here is that
there´ll be a choice (and maybe not even an exclusive choice).
Asking what the better kernel is may be comparable to the question what the
better window manager is. "It always depends" seems to be the right answer.
If you want to know for which tasks the Hurd system will performance best,
I consider it a part of the Debian GNU/Hurd project to find out.
Marcus
PS: Some things you can already reckognize. For example, you can write
hardware support without the nasty "hack, compile, reboot" cycle. Hardware
support can be implemented in user space etc. This has influence on the
possibility to write emulation for other hardware/systems, like Wine etc.
--
"Rhubarb is no Egyptian god." Debian GNU/Linux finger brinkmd@
Marcus Brinkmann http://www.debian.org master.debian.org
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