Kenneth Gonsalves lawgon@thenilgiris.com writes:
i was just echoing linus torwalds comments on hurd. What he said is that it is over engineered and hence although it looks great on paper, it can never be properly implemented.
Linus maynot agree., and a lot of `Linux` fanatics may not agree.. but., its a known fact in the OS research area that a monolithic system such as the `Linux` kernel would obsolete itself soon. With the processing power we've today, we need a lot more features than what the Linux kernel provides.
Supercomputing is a area where Monolithic systems are just not suitable. `Distributed OSes`, are far more advanced than Clustering. Future supercomputing wont be based on `clusters`., they'll be based on distributed OSes which make a network of machines look like one huge machine at runtime. The OpenMosix project makes a network of Linux kernels into a Distributed OS., however its a hack. On the Hurd, a distributed system is a feature. The advantage is because of the superior microkernel technology underneath. In 1990., with the meagre processing power, talking about message passing might have been absurd. But today, when both processing power and microkernel technology have grown exponentially, sticking to old theory is kinda silly. It is basically limiting ourselves when we can see far better things.
Which is why very few people are interested in developing it.
The developers are not very easily attracted to the Hurd basically because of lack of awareness. When people know `Linux` and not `GNU/Linux`., obviously they never get to know about the `GNU` system., nor the GNU kernel `Hurd`. Just talk to `Linux` enthusiasts about calling `Linux` as `GNU/Linux`., they'll sneer at you. They are happy with what they have. I dont know how they'll react when they realize that their `beloved` system would be obsoleted.