Re: hypothetical question

["B. Douglas Hilton" <doug.hilton@engineer.com>]

Hey, don't overlook Hurd! Its a microkernel + multiserver OS like QNX
which currently uses the gnuMach microkernel. Functionally it is very
similar to older versions of Debian GNU/Linux.
    My goal is to replace gnuMach with a compatible microkernel written
in Ada, use it to boot the Hurd, and then replace the C-Hurd with Ada-Hurd translators
at my leisure. The end result would be a rock solid OS that is binary compatible
with all the Hurd packages written in whatever language they are written in.
It would be a bad idea to get rid of the gcc libc because so much great old
software is made for it and c hasn't died yet.
    There's no point in re-writing an OS because GNU has all the features you'd
ever want or need. All you need is an Ada microkernel to start the migration.
Use GNU as your OS, just make it work with an Ada kernel and we will blow
away the Windoze world in no time. Imagine how cool it would be if the Linux
kernel was written in Ada.... but the Hurd is even cooler still!
    What Linux did ( and we should be thankful ) is bring the GNU OS to the
people. There is no learning curve from a user's perspective from going from
GNU/Linux to GNU/Hurd because it is the same set of UNIX-like programs
that we use. It has BASH, ls, cp, mv, ln, startx, etc. Use Linux to learn GNU,
then help GNU grow away from just one kernel. In some ways, Linus sort of
inherited a full-blown UNIX OS when he wrote his kernel, but keep in mind
that it was thousands of university students that wrote the GNU operating
system, and those c-programs are not the same thing as the Linux kernel.

I don't mean to be ripping on Linux, because I'm using a state of the art Linux
system to post this message, but I personally can't understand the kernel because
it has grown so huge, and I always like to promote worthy new projects to keep
the competition fierce!

Cheers,
- Doug


Larry Kilgallen wrote:

> In article <3b448a6d@news.iprimus.com.au>, "Karl Fitz" <vampyre_16@hotmail.com> writes:
> > in my random thoughts as a 'newbie' programmer,
> > I begin to wonder the possibillity of creating an Operating System entirely
> > with ada. Or would it be better to use a variety of programming languages...
> > many questions arise from this but it intruiges me,
> > would it be more/less, stable (as a compasion to other Os) ?
> > ''           ''              ''       , resource hungry.... ?
> > Im sure that it is entirely possible but i guess the real question is ....
> > would it be practical ?
>
> It would certainly be practical, but the initial creation would not
> be any cheaper than creating a new operating system in _any_ language.
> The cost of creating an operating system is extremely high - ask
> Microsoft or IBM.