And THAT is the problem [LWN.net]

And THAT is the problem

Posted Aug 23, 2011 23:36 UTC (Tue) by rodgerd (guest, #58896)
In reply to: And THAT is the problem by khim
Parent article: HP dropping webOS devices

You mean like the microkernels used in MacOS, the iPhone that you're touting as the model of how to do things, and Windows?

Boy microkernels didn't get anywhere, did they.

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And THAT is the problem

Posted Aug 24, 2011 0:12 UTC (Wed) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

MacOS and Windows do not claim to be micro kernels anymore and they are not. The only widespread use of micro kernel that I am aware of is QNX.

And THAT is the problem

Posted Aug 24, 2011 7:44 UTC (Wed) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link]

MacOS may be based on the Mach microkernel, but given that it has a big monolithic BSD emulation layer and nothing else on top it can by no stretch of the imagination be called a »microkernel OS«. (Andrew Tanenbaum probably wouldn't like it any more than he likes Linux.) Very similar considerations apply to Windows; having the graphics driver in the kernel is not what one would expect in a microkernel OS.

It is fair to say that the microkernel concept, while academically interesting, has so far mostly failed to stand up to the exigencies of practical application. There are exceptions (QNX comes to mind), but despite previous claims to the contrary no mainstream operating system would, in fact, pass as a »microkernel OS«. At least Linux is honest about it :^)