Hurd-ng is an effort to build a new operating system that preserves the main design goals of the Hurd while fixing some of the Hurd's shortcomings. There is not yet an official roadmap or a concrete specification; indeed, much of the work is research oriented.
These pages try to summarize the major discussions and ideas.
Why ngHurd
This section explains the motivations behind the new design:
- Issues with Mach
- ?Issues with L4 Pistachio
History of the port to L4
Work already done
A position paper by Marcus Brinkmann and Neal H. Walfield can be found.
A draft specification of the Hurd-NG interfaces has been, but is no longer, available.
A critique of the original Hurd is available.
Subjects
Design processus
Concepts
- security
- ?CapabilityBasedMicrokernel
- FirstClassReceiveBuffer
- PowerBox
- WhatIsACapability
- WhatIsAConstructor
- WhatIsASpacebank
- TrivialConfinementVsConstructorVsFork
- CopyVsRevocableCopyVsMap
- SetuidVsConstructor
- HurdishApplicationsForPersistence
- WhatsInAGroup
- ThePolycastInterface
- PermissionBits
- CancellationForwarding
Problems to solve
Implementation
- ChoiceOfMicrokernel
- ?HurdInterafaces
- ?PosixLayer
- SystemStructure
Use Cases
please move me somewhere better! ?SamMason
Organization
Summaries should obey the following structure:
- if there is a consensus, it is clearly described
- if controversial points remain, there are also described after the consenus
- if no choice has been clearly made, all valid positions are descrbied
- withdrawed and invalid positions (prooved wrong, unrealistic, contradictory to some design principle, etc.) should be described only very briefly, and developed in a separate article
Each time a point seems to be overly long with respect to the rest of the article, it should be summarized in place and developed in a separate article.