Kent West wrote:
It's my understanding that the Hurd pre-dates Linux; it's just that once
Linux came along, the development on it moved at a much faster pace than
on the Hurd, and Debian was ported to run on it while the Hurd project
languished.
For those not up on the project, as I understand things...
Debian is an entire OS that can (at least theoretically) run on top of a
Erm...
Debian is almost entirely GNU. Those parts which are recognizeably
different from any other distro are the only parts which are
specifically Debian. That is, some of the install and management
software. Everything else is either GNU or Linux (the kernel, IOW).
This is true of every distro.
number of different kernels. It originally was to run on the GNU Mach
kernel as part of the Hurd project, but then Linux came along and
outpaced Hurd development, so Linux became the new underlying kernel for
mainstream Debian.
Interesting bit of history.
The big difference between Linux and the GNU Mach kernel is that with
Linux, many things (hardware drivers, file system drivers, etc) are
integrated into the kernel, whereas with a micro-kernel architecture
like GNU Mach, the kernel is just a very small core piece of code, and
then the drivers, etc are attached as "servers" (sort of like inserting
a module into the Linux kernel, but different). These servers are more
modular than Linux kernel modules, and can be attached by normal users
rather than requiring admin access, because the modularity prevents them
from tromping on each other.
Ah, so HURD is based on the microkernel model. That's a superior
approach to the integrated kernel in some ways. In others, of course,
it has some drawbacks. Some of the advantages of a microkernel are
not so useful on an upper-end system like most PCs. (I mean as
opposed to lower-end systems, like microwave ovens, and automotive
dashboard and engine control.)
Of course, I probably don't really understand things ....
No comment :-)
Mike
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