> I'm very open to that debate, but then show it. Exclude the drivers from the numbers. To do otherwise feels very dishonest.

You can ask for numbers without casting aspersions like that.

This is HN. It is something like a casual conversation. You are free to ask for numbers, other people are free to provide or not provide them, and we should be able to have this conversation without leveling accusations of dishonesty (which the word “feels” does not really temper).

I didn't say they were being dishonest, I said it feels dishonest. Consider it a critique of the message with my reasoning given.

I was actually trying to find the numbers myself, and it was surprisingly more involved than I'd care for. I didn't want to give someone else more work, but happy to see the numbers expanded. I stand by my criticism, though. It feels off. If you want to say it is justified, spend more effort justifying it.

> I didn't say they were being dishonest, I said it feels dishonest.

The phrase “it feels” is not carte blanche to say what you want.

I could say, “Someone reading this post might think that you’re an axe murderer.” Certainly not me, I don’t think you’re an axe murderer. But someone reading this post might think so. What this does is introduce a new topic of conversation—that topic is you, and whether you’re an axe murderer. I’ve done it without saying anything untrue. It is literally true, that someone reading this post might think that you’re an axe murderer. That has much the same effect as an accusation, but I’ve given you no real way to respond.

When you write “it feels”, there is an implied subject, who is feeling those feelings. That subject is you.

This form of rhetoric for criticism is silly, though. For one, you are giving no charity to the side of my conversation. For two, you have to take it to the absurd caricature of claiming that others think someone is an axe murderer to try and make your point. Literally a type of rhetorical fallacy.

I flat out feel it is dishonest, in the vein that it is cherry picked data to further support a point that they agree with. Such that, using "this is a casual conversation" as a rubrik, I absolutely call BS from people when they say stuff like this to me.

If this was a "town square debate" where the conversation is partisan and folks are trying to score points, I'd agree with your assertion a bit more. But for casual conversation specifically, I ultimately reject this view.

Now, if the poster is specifically offended, I'm more than willing to apologize on that and to clarify my point. I had no ill things to say about the poster or the main topic. Heavily critical of cherry picked data, with a justification of why.

> For two, you have to take it to the absurd caricature of claiming that others think someone is an axe murderer to try and make your point. Literally a type of rhetorical fallacy.

No, actually quite the opposite: Reductio ad absurdum is a form of logical proof, not a fallacy.

But that is the entire point of the comparison. I get that you think an apples to apples comparison is the most honest way to portray this, but the whole point is to portray that this is an apples to oranges comparison. Linux has millions of lines of code running in ring 0, a micro kernel does not. They may end up having the same lines of code for comparable total system size, but that isn’t the point of the comparison.

Process isolation actually isn’t fundamentally hard…it’s just hard on a system that wasn’t designed for it. And SELinux doesn’t do what microkernels do. Even with a tightly locked down SELinux configuration, a driver vulnerability can lead to root access. SELinux can protect your userland the same way that microkernels do, but it can’t put your drivers in userland.

Fair. I'm not a fan of apples to oranges comparisons without leaning into more of it. Especially not when the obvious driver for difference between two things is that one is old and has a ton of the code you are currently behind on writing.

I do question if process isolation isn't fundamentally hard. Separate processes for separate things entirely is not fundamentally hard. That, I agree. But, so much of what we do is integrated together. Is why early attempts to make it so that some programs can't see my whole hard drive are bonkers annoying. I specifically want access to the picture I just saved in that editing program so that I can email it.

>obvious driver for difference between two things is that one is old and has a ton of the code you are currently behind on writing.

In this case they’re both old though, as Hurd predates Linux by a year.

Fair, if amusing. Hurd "predates" Linux in name only. And, if anything, this would serve as a strong piece of evidence that microkernels have a hard time getting traction.

Which brings the debate back to the argument, doubtless made many many times over the years, that there is probably a reason that microkernels have a hard time getting traction.

QNX managed it! Drivers run in separate address spaces as, does the kernel, making it very robust. It's used for safety-critical applications.

> I'm very open to that debate, but then show it. Exclude the drivers from the numbers. To do otherwise feels very dishonest.

With drivers:

    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Language                             files          blank        comment           code
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    C                                    32699        3332747        2610014       17218820
    C/C++ Header                         23690         712617        1373965        7109290
    Assembly                              1336          48534         101884         234314

Without drivers:

    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Language                             files          blank        comment           code
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    C                                    13200        1031558         951267        5356551
    C/C++ Header                         13760         300309         535100        1643611
    Assembly                              1321          47500         100899         230638

Seven million lines without drivers. Linux is huge. I'm sure you'll move the goalposts further though, so what should I do next? Delete most stuff in arch/ and samples/ ?

Numbers obtained by running cloc 1.96 on current kernel master.

This seems to just support my criticism, though? Even without the drivers, it is still a big number, but is literally less than half the lines of code shown before? Why inflate what you show just to get an absurd comparison?

I think many are misunderstanding my criticism here. I offer it more as a way to strengthen the message than I do to question it entirely.

To that end, the only "goal post shift" I would add is to ask how many of the 17 million lines of driver code have to be done for Hurd to support hardware that would make it more relevant for a ton of users?

> Delete most stuff in arch/ and samples/ ?

Probably? If you really want an apples-to-apple comparison, delete everything but x86_64 support from both Linux and Hurd. Remove sample code.

linux/net isn't strictly "drivers", but implements the base of the networking stack. That's 900k lines. Is that networking base code included with the Hurd figures? If not, delete it (or include in your comparison Hurd's base networking code).

Beyond that, this is getting a bit ridiculous. Who cares about the LoC comparisons? They're very different kernels with very different levels of maturity and number of features. I'm not even convinced you can call one "better" or "worse" based on this metric at all.