Re: [SPITBALL] Jehanne as another kernel option / porting target

[Joshua Branson]

pinoaffe <pinoaffe@airmail.cc> writes:

> raingloom writes:
>
>> seL4 would be cool too.
> Didn't someone do some work on making hurd run on SEL4?
> Or am I misremembering

You are correct.  :)

https://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/history/port_to_another_microkernel.html

By now (that is, after 2006), there were some new L4 variants available,
which added protected IPC paths and other features necessary for
object-capability systems; so it might be possible to implement the Hurd
on top of these. However, by that time the developers concluded that
microkernel design and system design are interconnected in very
intricate ways, and thus trying to use a third-party microkernel will
always result in trouble. So Neal Walfield created the experimental
Viengoos kernel instead -- based on the experience from the previous
experiments with L4 and Coyotos -- for his research on resource
management. Currently he works in another research area though, and thus
Viengoos is on hold.

So essentially most of the active hurd developers considered a port to a
different microkernel to be impractical.  :(

However, one of the main hurd developers (he has since stepped away from
active development), started a hurd clone:  x15.

https://www.sceen.net/x15/

He claimed that the original GNU Hurd has too many bad design
decisions.  So he started from scratch writing a kernel.  His kernel x15
is NOT a mach replacement.  However, some of the code he wrote for x15
has been incorporated in the GNU Hurd.  :)

--
Joshua Branson (joshuaBPMan in #guix)
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