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When will MS replace the NT-kernel in windows?
tooki:
--- Quote from: nctnico on January 25, 2024, 11:34:49 am ---
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on January 25, 2024, 10:38:36 am ---What I believe would kill such efforts, is Microsoft's dependency on keeping major proprietary software houses and hardware vendors (developing their own drivers) on board. Switching to a more POSIX-like kernel and interfaces would mean they'd have to port their code to that, which would lead to porting to additional systems like Linux (and obviously Mac OS, too) much easier, risking Windows' market share on the desktop in the future.
--- End quote ---
This is under the assumption Microsoft makes serious money from Windows which is something I doubt. Also keep in mind the entire dot-net ecosystem that Microsoft maintains to develop software for Windows. It could be benificial to let go of a lot of dead weight like that and concentrate on sectors which are actually profitable. Looking at the numbers here, you can see the income from Windows is not significant: https://www.kamilfranek.com/microsoft-revenue-breakdown/
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How the hell does LinkedIn make more than half as much revenue as Windows?!? :o :o If I’d been asked to guess, I would have assumed that LinkedIn was somewhere under a percent, not 7%!!
asmi:
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on January 25, 2024, 10:38:36 am ---Creating a new Windows OS based on a microkernel or a BSD-derived kernel, capable of running older Windows binaries (including all current OS APIs/ABIs and services) via virtualization (a derivative of the existing Windows kernels designed for backwards compatibility), now that would be interesting, and technically at least somewhat feasible.
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Modern NT kernel already has some elements of microkernel design - for example it can survive graphics driver crash and restart the driver without rebooting OS (and no BSOD of course), also NT design has a concept of executive subsystems which can run concurrently and each provide it's own userland - Win32 API is provided by CSRSS subsystem, which is just one example of such subsystem - AND since those subsystems run as usermode processes (as far as kernel is concerned), OS can simply restart it if it crashes. Think about running multiple different "init" subsystems in parallel in Linux without one getting in the way of another, and having ability to restart any of them on the running system without affecting the rest of the OS. This has been a design feature of NT kernel since the very beginning.
SiliconWizard:
Yes, Windows NT has been a hybrid kernel right from the start. It got designed at about the same time as Linux, and Andrew Tanenbaum himself thought that it was a better design than Linux. Of course he was somewhat biased by its promotion of microkernels, but the monolithic nature of Linux was never really seen as particularly modern. Linux does work remarkably well in spite of that, and I'm glad it exists, but I wouldn't call its design "modern" by any means.
You'd need to know the Windows NT kernel extremely well to figure out if it's actually worth replacing it with something else at this point, assuming for the same purpose (ie. essentially desktop computing, I'd forget about Windows server, which may be another matter). Very few people, even working at MS, actually now it that well - it's a rather small circle, so I'd be surprised if those here that seem to claim having a definite opinion about it did. Eh, who knows.
But back on track - for this thread - in the end, it looks like the OP's question was mainly triggered by the hiring of Lennart Poettering by MS, and once he stated that point, in turn it triggered some kind of flamewar and insults, which is unfortunate, but it was to be expected. IMO, the very reason this thread was started made it "political" by nature. Just a thought.
Karel:
To use the new windows AI Studio tool, you must first install Linux. No, it's not a joke
Never underestimate the importance of Linux, even for windows development.
https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/to-use-the-new-windows-ai-studio-tool-you-must-first-install-linux-no-its-not-a-joke
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-windows-ai-studio.windows-ai-studio&ssr=false#overview
PlainName:
The strangeness is that more cross-development isn't done. Developers should be using the best environment for developing, which isn't necessarily the target. I've done ground-up Linux from source on Windows and that worked a lot better than if I'd tried the same from Linux (or, horrors of horrors, on the target device, which is what seems to be the rage). Were I embedded in Linux and comfortable with the tools, I would prefer to target Windows from there. Currently I'm targeting Android from non-Android - perhaps I should be doing it all on a phone.
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