Re: mach deficiencies

[Michael Bacarella <mbac@nyct.net>]

> > > that it's always smaller and faster, but, it's written entirely in
> > > assembler! Of course it'd be small and fast. :)
> 
> Written entirely in assembler? Sounds a bit difficult to port...

I think the idea is not to port it, but reimplement it in assembler on the
target platform. You need to provide the same interface to the servers on
different platforms.

This shouldn't be a difficult task because of the smallness of it.

> I'd like to make a pitch then for Fluke which seems to descend from Mach
> so porting the Hurd might be easier than to other microkernels. It's also
> GPL. And I like the Recursive Virtual Machine idea. 
> 
> Maybe you guys could provide URL's to L4 / Fiasco so I could have a look
> at those?

I did a google search (www.google.com) for "L4 Microkernel" 

> I think the kernel issue needs to be resolved because recruiting people
> to an OS project where the kernel is a known dead end will not be easy.

A lot of folks shun the Hurd for being microkernel. We don't have much to
go by outside of theoretical benefits that will happen -some- day. L4
sounds like it'd be immediately helpful, at least much more than say
GNUMach.

I know that at least a few core maintainers of the Hurd feel this way.

Michael Bacarella