Redox – A Unix-Like Operating System Written in Rust

Re:Redox – A Unix-Like Operating System Written in Rust by nixpulvis on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @12:54PM (#18443034)

I feel like a new fresh look at what UNIX is today could be valuable. I wouldn't want to give up a lot of the philosophy around it. Redox does in fact do this in a number of places, for example I think the expansion on "everything is a file" [1] is a pretty awesome idea.

[1]: https://doc.redox-os.org/book/design/url_scheme_resource/eve...

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Re:Redox – A Unix-Like Operating System Written in Rust by sam0x17 on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @02:00PM (#18443732)

I'd love to see a "there are no paths, file system is a db" like it was originally rumored Vista was going to be. I'd also love to see more opinionated OS integration e.g. per-application volume sliders, better file system search indexing, real-time built-in file and directory watching API that can be blocking or non-blocking, standardized storage of program files instead of installed app locations being ambiguous, standardized system and app settings via a neat API, etc., etc., an easy and sane git-based package manager, etc

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Re:Redox – A Unix-Like Operating System Written in Rust by GordonS on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @02:14PM (#18443891)

Windows 10 does per-application volume control.

Chrome OS has a fixed app install location, as does Windows 10 in 'S' mode (since you can only install store apps).

I remember being intrigued by the database-as-filesystem idea when it was first touted - has any OS actually implemented this? I'd be interested to see how it works in practice.

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Re:Redox – A Unix-Like Operating System Written in Rust by TickleSteve on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @02:42PM (#18444177)

"pick"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pick_operating_system

Everything old is new again... this was from the mid-60s and was relatively popular for its time.

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Re:Redox – A Unix-Like Operating System Written in Rust by gvx on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @03:32PM (#18444625)

Very interesting. The one thing that stood out to me was this, though:

> It is named after one of its developers, Dick Pick.

What an unfortunate name.

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Re:Redox – A Unix-Like Operating System Written in Rust by gregw2 on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @09:42PM (#18447015)

OS/400 did this, very cool tech that was never "cool"

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Re:Redox – A Unix-Like Operating System Written in Rust by pjmlp on Wednesday November 14, 2018 @03:45AM (#18448469)

Given the way Android and UWP apps work, I always have a warm fuzzy feeeling of carrying a subset of OS/400 design ideas with me.

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Re:Redox – A Unix-Like Operating System Written in Rust by adamnemecek on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @02:35PM (#18444102)

These are all very good ideas I’ve also thought about.

WinFS was ahead of its time. Also re file watching, I think I want a reactive api for a lot ornate operations.

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Re:Redox – A Unix-Like Operating System Written in Rust by dralley on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @01:08PM (#18443180)

That only makes things more confusing because Redox is explicitly not a traditional Unix. It's more like Plan9, except it goes even further than Plan9 in few places, and things like the Ion shell in Redox don't attempt to be Posix compatible.

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Re:Redox – A Unix-Like Operating System Written in Rust by pjmlp on Wednesday November 14, 2018 @03:46AM (#18448473)

What about comparing Redox with Inferno instead?

The actual end of the line for UNIX improvements done by the original designers.

I never get the mistic around the middle stop instead of the end of the line.

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Re:Redox – A Unix-Like Operating System Written in Rust by stcredzero on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @12:51PM (#18443007)

If an operating system was built to run lambdas instead of processes, what would that look like?

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Re:Redox – A Unix-Like Operating System Written in Rust by nixpulvis on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @12:59PM (#18443096)

What is a lambda to you in this case? That lambda will need to be scheduled, it will need to maintain it's scope... All the same general issues could exist. There have been plenty of machines that simply run functions, in fact before there was things we call OSes today, the machines that ran the code would typically not have an notion of time sharing, and would map even more closely to a pure lambda evaluator.

Without specifics about what differences you mean, lambda = function = process = thread = fiber = service = worker = ...

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Re:Redox – A Unix-Like Operating System Written in Rust by stcredzero on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @01:18PM (#18443281)

What is a lambda to you in this case?

Pure functions.

That lambda will need to be scheduled, it will need to maintain it's scope... All the same general issues could exist.

But no users would have to be able to start processes. Instead, lambdas could be associated with persistent storage of state, and processes would be started by the OS to apply the lambdas in a simulation loop, but users wouldn't directly start processes.

Perhaps thinking of those as processes isn't quite right either.

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Re:Redox – A Unix-Like Operating System Written in Rust by chc4 on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @02:06PM (#18443799)

Have you looked at Urbit? It uses this idea - programs are state machines that you give to the runtime, which pumps them with events (IO, RPC calls, etc) that return [new-state events-out]. All programs are purely functional and deterministic, so you can replay events or serialize the app to transfer somewhere else.

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Re:Redox – A Unix-Like Operating System Written in Rust by stcredzero on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @07:20PM (#18446178)

All programs are purely functional and deterministic, so you can replay events or serialize the app to transfer somewhere else.

Interesting. Actually, I have one of my processes serializing its state and exporting it to a different process, while all of the clients continue playing the MMOsteroids game they're logged into.

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Re:Redox – A Unix-Like Operating System Written in Rust by nixpulvis on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @01:21PM (#18443310)

The only truly pure functions exist in the imaginary world of mathematics, if you even believe that.

But I think I kinda get your point, but would challenge you to think about this issue with the frame of mind of access control and permissions a bit. I think you'll find the need for some kind of process like task. Maybe not...

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Re:Redox – A Unix-Like Operating System Written in Rust by stcredzero on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @01:44PM (#18443562)

The only truly pure functions exist in the imaginary world of mathematics, if you even believe that.

Note I already mentioned persistent stores of state.

I think you'll find the need for some kind of process like task. Maybe not...

Maybe re-read. I've already said that there would be a process like task. Lambdas will need to be associated with state. Users won't have to start processes. Instead, processes will be more like processors.

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Re:Redox – A Unix-Like Operating System Written in Rust by macintux on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @02:01PM (#18443743)

This sounds like the Erlang VM.

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Re:Redox – A Unix-Like Operating System Written in Rust by stcredzero on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @07:28PM (#18446236)

I'll take that as positive feedback.

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Re:Redox – A Unix-Like Operating System Written in Rust by nickpsecurity on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @05:05PM (#18445357)

I'd look at Haskell-based stuff first. I was told, though, by Haskellers that things like House operating system are imperative in style even if done in Haskell. So, a quick search for functional programs for OS's gave these possibilities:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7166755

You were actually in that thread. Did the commenter's work not actually use FP or you not see it?

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Re:Redox – A Unix-Like Operating System Written in Rust by stcredzero on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @07:28PM (#18446232)

You were actually in that thread.

That's kinda trippy. It's like I was a different person. Also, I was working on the predecessor system to the one I'm currently working on. Back then, the thing was written in Clojure. I later ported it to Go. The design philosophy has changed a heck of a lot as well. Back then, I was going to have everything on the same very large and fast virtual instance, with modest goals for the largest population/scale. Now my system is scalable by adding more "workers," which I've spread out onto small AWS instances.

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Re:Redox – A Unix-Like Operating System Written in Rust by abecedarius on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @05:44PM (#18445622)

"A security kernel based on the lambda calculus" http://mumble.net/~jar/pubs/secureos/

http://cap-lore.com/CapTheory/upenn/

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Re:Redox – A Unix-Like Operating System Written in Rust by ASipos on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @12:57PM (#18443071)

If K-A-T doesn't spell 'cat', what does it spell?

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Re:Redox – A Unix-Like Operating System Written in Rust by Crespyl on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @03:05PM (#18444392)

'kat'

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Re:Redox – A Unix-Like Operating System Written in Rust by someguydave on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @05:18PM (#18445456)

It would look like a LISP machine from Symbolics...

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