Live Demo CD of Microkernel-Based TUD:OS Released

Norman Feske writes "The OS Group of Technische Universität Dresden (TUD:OS) has released a live demo CD of their custom operating system project. TUD:OS is a microkernel-based operating system targeted at secure and real-time systems. Some highlights of the demo CD include a new approach for securing graphical user interfaces called Nitpicker, multiple L4Linux kernels running at the same time on top of a custom L4 microkernel, a survey on the reuse of device drivers on the TUD:OS platform, native Qt-applications, the DOpE windowing system, games, and a lot more. More information is available at the demo CD website demo.tudos.org. And yes, there are screenshots, too!"

Anyone have a torrent?

[jarom]

Anyone have a torrent, or has downloaded the ISO and can make one?

Re:If they managed to create something like this..

[rubycodez]

HURD was aiming to be a general purpose OS, not a realtime or embedded secure OS. That said, just by looking at its CVS, looks like HURD became undead over a year ago. It's ok, GNU has given us everything else an operating system needs, probably Linux and the BSDs sapped the life & development mindshare out of HURD.

Explanation of the naming

[Florian]

"TUD:OS" is simply an acronym of "Technical University Dresden Operating System". Their computer science department has done amazing work on the l4 microkernel, and continues to release all its code under free licenses, btw.

Re:Whats with the linux thing

[Anonymous Coward]

L4Linux is para-virtualized, that means the Linux kernel was adapted to run as an application on top of the Fiasco microkernel. Xen is really virtualized - it emulates a virtual machine that the OS runs inside.

HURD delays

[Anonymous Coward]

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2006-03 /msg00091.html [gnu.org] seems to indicate that the devs are still discussing HURD...

...of course HURD is the Gargantuan Ancient Granddaddy of Cathedral vs Bazaar style development ...

http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/samizdat-respons e.html [catb.org]

...I can tell you exactly why the HURD tanked. It was listening to a presentation by HURD's project lead in 1996, and realizing the project was doomed, that started me on the train of thought that led to "The Cathedral and the Bazaar". They were trying to do engineering and pure R&D at the same time; they lacked focus or any drive to actually ship code; and their development group was too small and inbred.

Re:How does this compare to HURD?

[Abcd1234]

Not really, no. The HURD is a project to implement a Unix-like API on top of a microkernel (originally Mach, now L4) as a set of servers. This is distinctly different from running an entire Linux kernel as a single L4 process (which is what is done with L4Linux).

Re:How does this compare to HURD?

[Anonymous Coward]

At a glance, it looks like they have something like the HURD:

L4VFS is the IO infrastructure for a Posix-like multi-server system on top L4 and DROPS. It comprises a set of client-side libraries gluing together typical C library functions in the client and a service providing set of servers on the other side. In the demo we show how terminal IO works, demonstrate some VT100 escape sequence magic, GNU Readline Library support and file system browsing.

which seems seperate from their Linux kernel:

L4Linux is a port of the Linux kernel to L4 and makes it possible to run unmodified Linux programs on top of L4. In the L4Linux demo we will show how L4Linux integrates in an L4 system and point out several different usage scenarios in which L4Linux can be used. The actual demonstration focusses on launching multiple instances of L4Linux, until the system resources are exhausted. More deployments of L4Linux can be seen in the other demonstrations.

Re:Whats with the linux thing

[Anonymous Coward]

A Linux on Xen is modified and thus paravirtualized. The term 'paravirtualization' is actually coming from Xen (IIRC). Fully virtualized means that you can take an unmodified Linux kernel and run it in the environment. That does not work with Xen (except with VT/Pacifica support).

L4Linux is also paravirtualized as it's a modified Linux kernel running on a hypervisor.

Re:Not impressed

[ArsenneLupin]

First, I had to install proprietary software, mvplayer, to run it.

Wrong.

It runs in qemu just fine. It's even described on their site how to do it.

And you can always burn it onto a physical CD-Rom, and boot it up in a physical machine.

several of the demos didn't supply a "reboot" option so I had to exit the whole thing, delete the vmware files, except the vmx, and refire wmplayer so I could get the tudos menu again. It's been years since I've run a Linux distro that was this buggy or hard to use.

It's a CD-based demo, so your vmware files won't have "state" in them anyways. Just kill your vmware, and restart it, without wiping any files.