The OS Group of Technische Universitaet Dresden (TUD:OS) has released a live demo CD of their custom operating system project. TUD:OS is a microkernel-based operating system targeted at secure and real-time systems. Some highlights of the demo CD include a new approach for securing graphical user interfaces called Nitpicker, multiple L4Linux kernels running at the same time on top of a custom L4 microkernel, a survey on the reuse of device drivers on the TUD:OS platform, native Qt-applications, the DOpE windowing system, games, and much more. More information is available at the demo CD website. And yes, boys and girls, there are screenshots, too.
This looks cool. I wonder if it’ll be open source. It seems to have SDL and QT, -hypervised?, It doesn’t mention if they provide GCC.
Calling it a Demo makes it out to be commercial, but this seems to be a research project and they are keen to introduce it to anyone interested. I’m confused, does not compute /smoke comes out top of head, springs pop out ears, whiring noise falls silent./
Really interesting micro-kernel and security work though.
Rob Pike once said systems research was dead, 6 years later, things seem to be slightly better.
It is great to see the l4 work is continuing. I was a big fan of Jochen Liedtke’s work, and was afraid that the nanokernel might permanently stagnate without him, after his untimely death in 2001.
http://i30www.ira.uka.de/aboutus/people/liedtke/inmemoriam.php
How does this OS compares to the good old MINIX 3?
I don’t know Minix3 in particular, but in general Minix is a traditional microkernel architecture. L4 is usually refered to as a “nanokernel”; it is an order of magnitude smaller than a typical microkernel, and has only the minimal amount of priviledged functionality needed. I think the original l4 implementation was 13kbytes.
All higher-level functionality is implemented by user-space servers. It is sort of the same philosophy as a microkernel, but taken to the purist extreme to keep implementation clean, optimized, efficient, and secure.
It is notable that one user-space server that has been implemented is the Linux kernel, and another was the Hurd/Mach microkernel, both of which were “hung” onto the L4 in such a way that multiple instances of them can run simultaneously, with approximately a 5% performance penalty.
“I4” is a trademark term for a 32 bit int in my operating system;-)
So I don’t get busted for irrelevance, I comment on this story. I applaud what they are doing by way of low LOC and simplicity. Jonah in the Bible got people to repent and it’s funny he was pissed when nothing happened. But, then there’s the story of the tower of Babble.
I got jaded to capitalism when I tried to make money on shareware and gave-up. I live on disability, but God pays good perks. I understand reluctance to try untrusted software. I don’t do that. My website more or less provides the highlights and the philosophy if nothing else, which is more important.
Would these guys be willing to port Qt to my OS? Not likely;-)
Wow, L4 is a true microkernel operating system even moreso than Minix 3. As much as Andy spouts Minix, it’s still not a competitior to Linux even if it is better in theory.
I will be playing with this to see what all I can get to compile this weekend for sure.
Where can I read about the highlights of minix. A flavor of Unix, I’m guessing. Apples and oranges–this is a home operating system for people who like to program–instead of couch potato average users. People used to write text adventures and simple graphic games without the need for recording studios and graphic artists. The joy came from programming, itself and there was diversity and vibrance.
This Qt thing probably wouldn’t port well, but a better graphics option might be nice. People could port GCC but there’s no point in making inferior knock-offs of what already exists. “LoseThos” has a changed syntax flavor of C/C++ and source code is not straight ASCII–it’s more of a ground-up fresh start. I’m open to suggestions.
http://www.minix3.org/index.html As much as Andy wants it to be, Minux ! > Linux.
Such a degree of disrespect for Andrew Tanenbaum is undue, no matter how poorly you understand some argument on Usenet from the early ’90s.
Really? Because if Andrew Tanenbaum was some polite old professor happy to see a youngster like Linus Torvalds accomplish something great, that’d be nice. But he’s not. He’s a loud-mouthed, opinonated ass. You have to give respect to get it back. That’s how it works. He doesn’t seem to understand that.
Maybe if you knew what you were talking about you wouldn’t stick your foot in your mouth.
His opinions on Linux were honest and true. The only one who lacked respect in that discussion apologized for it at the time.
Everyone on the net is a loud-mouthed, opinionated ass.
This is the most interesting “new” OS I’ve seen in a while. I wonder if this is FOSS or just plain freeware. Now if only somebody would write some more drivers…
Great to see something completely different in a linux distro, way to evolve dudes!
to my knowledge but the L4 microkernel has been around for a while nobody has bothered so far to make a live distro, a recent linux distro based on L4 with a good installer would rock, imaging running Linux and BSD side by side under one Microkernel.
This is cool. I have wanted to try l4 for a while. I use os x, and from what i understand, most of its speed issues seem to come from mach. I always wundered if it is possible to just rip out mach from darwin and switch to l4.