Debian GNU/Hurd 2015 released

https://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2015/04/msg00047.html

250 46 11 years ago

lists.debian.org

vezzy-fnord2• 11 years ago

I have a snapshot from May 2014 running as a VirtualBox instance. Tried IceWM and a GNU build chain on it. I'll probably update soon, need to find out what open issues have been addressed in 0.6.

christianbryant5• 11 years ago

I just rolled GNU/Hurd 2015 into a VM. It's early, but the first thing I'll note is that I felt for the first time that GNU/Hurd is a deployable OS. Still, I need that 64-bit version... killing me, here!

mikegioia• 11 years ago

Do you have any info or a website you could point me to on how to build the image into a virtualbox VM? Running VBoxManage from their guide [1] isn't working for me. I can create the VDI file but on boot I'm getting an error saying hd0s1 isn't found >_<

[1] https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install

GuamPirate• 11 years ago

I'm extremely excited to check this out! I really like the idea of translators, and low and behold when I log in there's a tutorial on them in root's home directory! I might switch to this if the ui is bearable enough.

thomasahle• 11 years ago

Link: http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd/documentation/translat...

lessthunk• 11 years ago

What are your main motivations to use GNU Hurd? Not wanting to troll, fishing for a link for good background reading

christianbryant5• 11 years ago

Advantages:

http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/advantages.html

http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/community/weblogs/ArneBab/t...

bsaul• 11 years ago

Just read the advantages, some parts seem a bit old. Touting object oriented design as something enabling refactoring, whereas the trend for the last fifteen years has been toward interface-oriented design (with golang being the most extreme case).

Also, in a world of unikernels and app containers (trending toward the most static and restricted deployment unit possible), having an os being able to change its parts while running seems a bit useless.

But, who knows ? maybe we'll see new patterns emerge. That's a fantastic time for people interested in OSes.

fs1113• 11 years ago

I am writing this comment from a modern graphical webbrowser running on an OS with the GNU kernel. Who thought this day would ever come?

stefantalpalaru• 11 years ago

Bare metal or VM?

fs1113• 11 years ago

VirtualBox. I don't have a spare machine lying around, but still cool...

nfoz• 11 years ago

Is it the year of Debian GNU/Hurd on the desktop?

smhenderson• 11 years ago

I have it installed on a VM but can't seem to get Cinnamon running properly. Haven't messed with it too much but I was wondering what Desktop/Window Manager you installed to get to the point where you could use a "modern graphical web browser"?

I'm not picky and I just kind of randomly picked cinnamon during the install. Then Tasksel failed so when I restarted that part of the install I left the Desktop stuff out and everything worked fine. Once booted up I used aptitude to grab it, updated xinitrc to launch cinnamon-session but when I ran startx (after fiddling with enabling the hurd console that is) I was greeted with "Cinnamon Session Failed".

Anyway, I don't have a ton of time to mess with it but I'd like to try some options and see what I can get working. Any insight you have is appreciated!

Edit: When I said VM above, I mean VirtualBox if that matters...

fs1113• 11 years ago

I used fluxbox as the window manager. I simply installed iceweasel, xinit, xterm and fluxbox, ran startx and had working environment.

breakingcups• 11 years ago

Since the last snapshot release coinciding with "wheezy", the init system has been switched to sysvinit for a more Debian-like experience.

Hehehe, didn't Debian just switch to systemd with Jessie?

teddyh• 11 years ago

They changed the default to systemd. Sysvinit is still available.

0xFFC• 11 years ago

Availability of Sysvinit does not mean you can use it as safe as systemd , there is no requirement for Sysvinit support in debian package's anymore , so if you want use Sysvinit then you maybe encounter some package which does not work on debian.

e12e• 11 years ago

Debian/kFreeBSD also cannot run systemd -- it's been designed for Linux, rather than for portability.

kriro• 11 years ago

Very nice. I'll check it out when I get home. Certainly had this filed as "it might never happen" and haven't checked on the progress in quite some time. I hope someone will build an OS course around it eventually. Seems pretty good for teaching purposes.

Congratulations to everyone involved.

pedrow• 11 years ago

I wanted to look at the source code. Just to save anyone else the time to find it, the link is:

http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/hurd/hurd.git/tree/?id=v0.6

satuon• 11 years ago

Why Savannah (in savannah.gnu.org I mean)?

detaro• 11 years ago

Gnus live in the Savannah?

reitanqild• 11 years ago

Edit: ninjaed by detaro

tormeh2• 11 years ago

What are the advantages vs. Minix 3?

mreiland2• 11 years ago

how far along is Minix 3?

mreiland2• 11 years ago

if there's one thing I never expected it was to be downvoted for asking a legitimate question.

tormeh2• 11 years ago

Sounds similar to hurd. 32bit only, graphical ui, bsd applications. Theoretically usable as a daily driver.

kasabali• 11 years ago

Minix 3 doesn't have Debian userspace :)

xai3luGi• 11 years ago

It did back in 2011, at least on one Debian developer's computer:

http://www.braincells.com/debian/index.cgi/search/item=270

carussell2• 11 years ago

Hurd is based on Mach and available for x86 only. You can run X11 and Debian packages. Drivers for Linux have been ported. Debian/Hurd re-uses some of the Debian community infrastructure for development. Has a goal ("viable for everyday use, and gives users and programs as much control over their computing environment as possible"). The focus yields things at the intersection of research/pragmatic use (e.g., introducing novel features like translators).

Minix is less mature from a community standpoint and its development processes. It's developed and run by about half a dozen contributors (generous estimate). Mostly students. Lacks leadership. It runs on x86 and arm. The microkernel design is its own. It's been possible to run X on past versions, but despite other comments, X11 is not actually usable on the latest release (3.3.0, released 2014 September). No (graphical) web browser has ever been ported. Running primarily parts of the NetBSD userspace. Not so much interest in taking advantage of the modular design to introduce novel features; implicit focus on porting existing BSD packages instead.

_pmf_• 11 years ago

2015 will be the year of Hurd on the Desktop

marcosdumay• 11 years ago

For the tone of the comments here, it'll be more the year of the Hurd Virtual Machine.

jheriko• 11 years ago

wait... its not april 1st? awesome. :)

ArneBab• 11 years ago

Not this time — but 4 years ago it was ☺

→ http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/news/2011-04-01.html

Times change.

Joeboy• 11 years ago

Does anybody offer a cheap (like $5 a month cheap) VPS you could run GNU/Hurd on? I am feeling a perverse need to run a website on it. Or maybe that's still a bad idea at this point?

0xdeadbeefbabe• 11 years ago

Gopher would be less perverse.

Debian GNU/Hurd 2015 released

Related Stories