Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released [LWN.net]

While it is not an official Debian release, the Debian GNU/Hurd team has announced the release of Debian GNU/Hurd 2013. GNU Hurd is a Unix-style kernel based on the Mach microkernel and Debian GNU/Hurd makes much of the Debian system available atop that kernel.

Debian GNU/Hurd is currently available for the i386 architecture with more than 10.000 software packages available (more than 75% of the Debian archive, and more to come!).

Please make sure to read the configuration information, the FAQ, and the translator primer to get a grasp of the great features of GNU/Hurd.

Due to the very small number of developers, our progress of the project has not been as fast as other successful operating systems, but we believe to have reached a very decent state, even with our limited resources.

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Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released

Posted May 22, 2013 4:25 UTC (Wed) by hadrons123 (guest, #72126) [Link] (1 responses)

10K package is not 75% of Debian archive, since Debian has 37K packages.

Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released

Posted May 22, 2013 4:33 UTC (Wed) by creemj (subscriber, #56061) [Link]

Presumably the figure is calculated w.r.t. source packages, not built binary packages.

Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released

Posted May 22, 2013 9:33 UTC (Wed) by dakas (guest, #88146) [Link] (32 responses)

Well, "Duke Nukem Forever" has been released in 2011 after having received several vaporware awards including a "lifetime vaporware award".

In contrast to that, GNU/HURD has had a thriving and active fan fiction scene with GNU/Linux. It will be hard to beat the expectations raised by that. "Duke Nukem Forever" was far more successful as a vaporware meme than as released software. The release killed the joke.

I doubt that the HURD will ever, as software, be able to live down what it has meant as a goal, motivation, icon, and as a joke.

But Debian GNU/HURD definitely does show that the FSF's statements about the kernel of the GNU system being of secondary importance are not all that far off: while a lot of Debian has sailed under the banner and impression of everything being about the "Linux" ecosystem, it turns out that Linux itself can be swapped out with a comparatively small effort in man-years, arriving at a system still having a lot of the same attractions.

Sure, in the areas focused around the kernel itself, namely device support, high performance scheduling, a virtual memory system honed over years of fine-tuning and so forth, Linux is not easily replaced. But a lot of what "Linux" has come to mean to people is only loosely connected with Linux and more connected with the free software universe as such.

And it is good to see a reminder of that.

Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released

Posted May 22, 2013 10:24 UTC (Wed) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link] (15 responses)

> the FSF's statements about the kernel of the GNU system being of secondary importance are not all that far off

In fact, the whole GNU system is of secondary importance. Today there are far more devices running Android/Linux than GNU/Linux systems.

Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released

Posted May 22, 2013 10:42 UTC (Wed) by donbarry (guest, #10485) [Link] (14 responses)

Importance isn't measured solely in units sold. Gumballs have had little or no impact on human culture.

The Android ecosystem is in many ways repeating some mistakes of Windows and OSX while adding the mistake of iTunes -- the vast majority of apps are non-free and the official app mechanism does not even provide the ability to determine whether an app is free. The further undermining of the GPL by Google has also created an environment in which even the massive GPL component of Android, the Linux kernel, has the reciprocal obligations commonly ignored by manufacturers small and large.

Yes, the code-dumps thrown over the wall by some manufacturers, sometimes, make it possible to run the base system freely on some hardware -- at considerable effort. Google's contributions are still to be welcomed for what they are. But let us not mistake Google as a true friend of free software.

Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released

Posted May 22, 2013 10:51 UTC (Wed) by tao (subscriber, #17563) [Link] (13 responses)

Most/all of the GNU userspace can be replaced by BSD userspace though.

Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released

Posted May 22, 2013 12:09 UTC (Wed) by donbarry (guest, #10485) [Link] (1 responses)

Can be, yes, though the GNU tools are both more complete and more functional. But why would one want to? I *prefer* to use tools which, by virtue of their license and the culture which created them and nurtures them, can't be easily subverted in their future development. There are enough junk routers in the world with their quickly hacked and forever invisible BSD sources (kernel and userland). The BSD proponents would have us consider the "use it and forget it" nature of the license as a positive force. In fact, it means in practice, that often stewardship is simply not taken seriously.

Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released

Posted May 22, 2013 16:47 UTC (Wed) by davi (guest, #18853) [Link]

> But why would one want to? I *prefer* to use tools which, by
> virtue of their license and the culture which created them and
> nurtures them, can't be easily subverted in their future
> development.

Well said.

Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released

Posted May 22, 2013 18:04 UTC (Wed) by xtifr (guest, #143) [Link] (2 responses)

In theory, yes. In practice, the reverse (replacing BSD userspace with GNU on a BSD kernel) is what people actually seem to want, since there's an active and supported project that does just that—Debian GNU/kFreeBSD—and none doing what you suggest.

I've used GNU/Solaris, GNU/HPUX, GNU/MS-DOS, GNU/OS2, and GNU/Linux, and as far as I'm concerned, a GNU system is what I want. I really don't care what kernel it uses. And that has little to do with the licensing—I'm pretty flexible when it comes to the whole GPL vs. BSD/MIT thing. It's about quality and consistency. GNU makes the best userspace, IMO.

Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released

Posted May 23, 2013 9:25 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Hear hear! Heck, I *started* with EMX and EPM on OS/2, moved to Emacs, and only years after that moved to Linux (in 1997, I think it was). GNU was a gateway drug to Linux, in my case, not vice versa. The same is probably true of most who came to Linux in the 90s.

Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released

Posted May 25, 2013 0:30 UTC (Sat) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]

> I really don't care what kernel it uses. And that has little to do with the licensing [...] It's about quality and consistency. GNU makes the best userspace, IMO.

Wait, let me guess... then you must belong to this strange species called... "users"? :-)

Until a few years ago there was still a "risk" that non-geeks confuse Linux and GNU userspace. Android/Linux is so different and now so popular that I think this risk is mostly gone.

So, does Richard feel better now? Maybe not...

Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released

Posted May 22, 2013 19:20 UTC (Wed) by ssmith32 (subscriber, #72404) [Link] (7 responses)

Except for the only compiler that can currently compile the Linux kernel - can't get anywhere if no one can compile the kernel :)

Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released

Posted May 22, 2013 19:56 UTC (Wed) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]

which is one of the reasons people are working to get another compiler able to compile the kernel.

Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released

Posted May 23, 2013 8:49 UTC (Thu) by sandsmark (guest, #62172) [Link] (5 responses)

You can compile the kernel with for example icc or llvm/clang with relatively minor changes.

What you can't replace is GNU Make.

Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released

Posted May 23, 2013 17:46 UTC (Thu) by drothlis (guest, #89727) [Link] (4 responses)

I wonder how many person-years it would take to write a fully compatible GNU make clone.

Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released

Posted May 24, 2013 1:36 UTC (Fri) by vonbrand (guest, #4458) [Link] (3 responses)

The point being?

Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released

Posted May 24, 2013 8:29 UTC (Fri) by drothlis (guest, #89727) [Link] (2 responses)

No point; it was a complete tangent. I genuinely wonder how hard it would be.
GNU Make seems like a significant piece of software but at the same time very
self-contained and conceptually quite simple.

What I want from a make implementation:

+ Parser accessible as a library (for IDEs, static analysis tools, etc).
+ Be able to switch features on and off; issue warnings if a makefile uses
a particular feature.
+ Well-documented source code; easy to implement new features.

Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released

Posted May 27, 2013 20:13 UTC (Mon) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link] (1 responses)

The weird thing is that there have been plenty of makes. BSDs have a make and most of the proprietary UNIX OSes had a make. However, for some reason they are bad enough that most complex projects refuse to build under anything other than GNU Make. AFAICT to avoid bugs, not so much lack of features.

And we have the rise of more advanced build systems, mostly layered on top of make. Autotools is common but pretty ugly. I think in recent times I have been most impressed with CMake. I find its DSL for describing what to build awkward, but I haven't seen anything better so it's fine for now.

But back to the original topic: GNU userland rules.

Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released

Posted May 27, 2013 21:04 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Oh, it's lack of features too. A huge number of the most useful GNU Make features aren't available under lesser makes, and reimplementing them is horrifically painful at best, and sometimes impossible. Easier just to rely on a decent make.

Myself, I have trouble imagining how anyone can do anything useful without $(eval ...). Yeah, you *can* use makefile fragments, but this is so painful and unreadable as to defy easy comprehension -- and even that won't work in a make without GNU Make's auto-rereading handling of 'include'. On those, you have to generate the included file, halt, and ask people to please rerun make. Horrible.

(Make's source code is very nice, btw. Easy to add simple features to with only a few minutes' reading. Congratulations are due to Roland and Paul, this is *nice* software. For a Unix make, that is. They'll always be a bit horrible in some ways -- but all the competition is worse, often much worse.)

Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released

Posted May 22, 2013 12:11 UTC (Wed) by tetley80 (guest, #88691) [Link] (2 responses)

But Debian GNU/HURD definitely does show that the FSF's statements about the kernel of the GNU system being of secondary importance are not all that far off

Eh? Without a kernel supporting the wide array of hardware present these days, the operating system as a whole doesn't provide useful function. Kernels are definitely not of secondary importance. While in the graphics arena Linux-based OSes often play catchup compared to Windoze, the Linux kernel has very decent hardware support otherwise, growing day by day. Can the same be said about Hurd?

Come to think of it, what exactly does the Hurd kernel provide that's a practical advantage in any area, compared to the Linux kernel, or even the *BSD kernels?

Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released

Posted May 22, 2013 14:55 UTC (Wed) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link]

The kernel needs to support the "hardware" provided by a virtual machine in order for it to be functional.

/me "installed" Debian GNU/HURD today (downloaded the QEMU/KVM image and ran kvm).

Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released

Posted May 22, 2013 15:53 UTC (Wed) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link]

Come to think of it, what exactly does the Hurd kernel provide that's a practical advantage in any area, compared to the Linux kernel, or even the *BSD kernels?

I'd like to think that the privilege separation in Hurd would help avoid the almost weekly parade of memory-tainting vulnerabilities that seem to afflict the Linux kernel these days.

Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released

Posted May 22, 2013 12:40 UTC (Wed) by csamuel (✭ supporter ✭, #2624) [Link] (4 responses)

Er, you do know that Debian themselves have had an experimental release with the FreeBSD kernel rather than the Linux kernel for the last couple of releases?

Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released

Posted May 22, 2013 14:16 UTC (Wed) by sciurus (guest, #58832) [Link] (3 responses)

Actually, I don't think there has been a release of Debian GNU/kFreeBSD for Wheezy yet.

Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released

Posted May 22, 2013 14:30 UTC (Wed) by sthibaul (✭ supporter ✭, #54477) [Link] (2 responses)

Debian GNU/kFreeBSD was part of both Squeeze and Wheezy releases.

Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released

Posted May 22, 2013 15:41 UTC (Wed) by tetley80 (guest, #88691) [Link] (1 responses)

Does the FreeBSD kernel provide any practical advantages over the Linux kernel ?

It seems that supporting the FreeBSD kernel, which has less functionality than the Linux kernel, is actually counter-productive, as the former prevents employing new technologies present in the latter.

Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released

Posted May 22, 2013 16:34 UTC (Wed) by pdewacht (subscriber, #47633) [Link]

ZFS seems to be the main attraction.

Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released

Posted May 22, 2013 16:44 UTC (Wed) by geofft (subscriber, #59789) [Link] (6 responses)

> But a lot of what "Linux" has come to mean to people is only loosely connected with Linux and more connected with the free software universe as such.
> And it is good to see a reminder of that.

The Mac is also a good reminder of that. Especially because its licensing is all wrong, and yet it has a community as vibrant as the Linux one (and overlapping, in many ways).

I'm using one right now, and honestly the only thing that really bothers me relative to Debian is the lack of a good packaging repository.

Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released

Posted May 22, 2013 19:38 UTC (Wed) by dakas (guest, #88146) [Link]

The Mac is also a good reminder of that. Especially because its licensing is all wrong, and yet it has a community as vibrant as the Linux one (and overlapping, in many ways).

A "community" is more than a bunch of app authors all out for themselves. Windows has been crawling with shareware and gratisware, and all that has not made a lasting impact.

Homebrew

Posted May 23, 2013 9:50 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] (4 responses)

I'm using one right now, and honestly the only thing that really bothers me relative to Debian is the lack of a good packaging repository.

I have to use a Mac laptop for work sometimes, and there is an excellent packaging repository: Homebrew. In fact it is so good that I don't miss APT at all, unless with most other Linux distros. Also it has Bash which makes it feel almost like home.

But there are multiple annoyances with it: lousy keyboard layout, inconsistent keyboard shortcuts for most applications (next tab anyone?), slooow with a spinning rust disk, and very hungry for resources. I miss my XFCE/GNU/Linux desktop machine all the time. Otherwise it is very nice hardware, I guess it could use an SSD inside and some Debian in it.

Homebrew

Posted May 23, 2013 12:41 UTC (Thu) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (1 responses)

Yeah, keyboard shortcuts suck - so I have remapped my keyboard heavily.

However, two just keyboard shortcuts atone for all of the others - consistently working copy and paste.

Copy + Paste

Posted May 23, 2013 16:03 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link]

The terminal is very annoying in this respect. Lately I have taken to use Windows shortcuts on my trusty XFCE: Shift + Insert to paste since Control + V does not work in a terminal window. But it behaves very strangely. Sometimes it pastes the regular clipboard (the one for Copy and Paste), at other times it pastes the primary selection (the one for middle-click).

When using the mouse though, I find that the primary selection (select and middle-click) is very handy and sorely miss it on Mac OS X: it works, but only from and to a terminal window.

Homebrew

Posted May 29, 2013 2:46 UTC (Wed) by gravious (guest, #7662) [Link] (1 responses)

+1 for Homebrew. But no matter how great a 3rd party package repo tool is you'll never get around the fact that it's a 3rd party tool.

I stuck an SSD in my Macbook. the difference is like night and day; do it, you won't regret it. Just make sure that (in pre-Lion I think) TRIM is enabled using something like this for instance.

Homebrew

Posted May 29, 2013 13:38 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link]

I am waiting for the guarantee to expire before upgrading to an excellent Crucial M4 128 GB like the one on my desktop. Thanks for the note about TRIM.

Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 released

Posted May 31, 2013 12:31 UTC (Fri) by phred14 (guest, #60633) [Link]

Not only DNF, but even E17 finally got released.