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Live Demo CD of Microkernel-Based TUD:OS Released

Posted by Roblimo on Mon Mar 13, 2006 09:45 AM
from the yet-another-contender-in-the-os-sweepstakes dept.
Operating Systems IT
Norman Feske writes "The OS Group of Technische Universität Dresden (TUD:OS) has released a live demo CD of their custom operating system project. TUD:OS is a microkernel-based operating system targeted at secure and real-time systems. Some highlights of the demo CD include a new approach for securing graphical user interfaces called Nitpicker, multiple L4Linux kernels running at the same time on top of a custom L4 microkernel, a survey on the reuse of device drivers on the TUD:OS platform, native Qt-applications, the DOpE windowing system, games, and a lot more. More information is available at the demo CD website demo.tudos.org. And yes, there are screenshots, too!"

Related Stories

[+] Developers: The Great Microkernel Debate Continues 326 comments
ficken writes "The great conversation about micro vs. monolithic kernel is still alive and well. Andy Tanenbaum weighs in with another article about the virtues of microkernels. From the article: 'Over the years there have been endless postings on forums such as Slashdot about how microkernels are slow, how microkernels are hard to program, how they aren't in use commercially, and a lot of other nonsense. Virtually all of these postings have come from people who don't have a clue what a microkernel is or what one can do. I think it would raise the level of discussion if people making such postings would first try a microkernel-based operating system and then make postings like "I tried an OS based on a microkernel and I observed X, Y, and Z first hand." Has a lot more credibility.'"
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  • you convinced me (Score:5, Funny)

    by gEvil (beta) (945888) on Monday March 13 2006, @09:49AM (#14907282)
    ...the DOpE windowing system...

    That's all I needed right there. I'm checking this out right now.

  • TURD OS (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anoraknid the Sartor (9334) on Monday March 13 2006, @09:49AM (#14907291) Homepage
    so near, and yet so far....
  • Besides the (already made) jokes about 'TurdOS', the fact that the last three letters of the name are 'D', 'O' and 'S' might lead people to pronounce it "Two DOS", and think it's a DOS clone like FreeDOS...

  • in debian (Score:3, Funny)

    by Janek Kozicki (722688) on Monday March 13 2006, @10:05AM (#14907437) Journal
    so in debian a package kernel-image*.deb was renamed to linux-kernel*.deb just so that packages netbsd-kernel*.deb, hurd-kernel*.deb or openbsd-kernel*.deb can be added. Now I'm anxious to see plans for including tudos-kernel*.deb in debian.

  • FINALLY! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Eli Gottlieb (917758) <eligottliebNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday March 13 2006, @10:05AM (#14907439) Homepage Journal
    Hurray for TUD:OS! Kudos for actually managing to get a functional but custom operating system into working live-CD form.

    The system architecture looks fine and dandy (L4 is a pretty good base microkernel), and I love the capability to make this system perform 9 different scenarios, including running L4Linux for when they lack their own software.

    Mazl tov!

  • If they managed to create something like this... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 10Ghz (453478) on Monday March 13 2006, @10:16AM (#14907540)
    Why is HURD still nowhere near finished (as in: ready to be used)?
    • HURD was aiming to be a general purpose OS, not a realtime or embedded secure OS. That said, just by looking at its CVS, looks like HURD became undead over a year ago. It's ok, GNU has given us everything else an operating system needs, probably Linux an

      • HURD delays (Score:4, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 13 2006, @12:43PM (#14908934)

        http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2006-03 /msg00091.html [gnu.org] seems to indicate that the devs are still discussing HURD...

        ...of course HURD is the Gargantuan Ancient Granddaddy of Cathedral vs Bazaar style development ...

        http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/samizdat-respons e.html [catb.org]

        ...I can tell you exactly why the HURD tanked. It was listening to a presentation by HURD's project lead in 1996, and realizing the project was doomed, that started me on the train of thought that led to "The Cathedral and the Bazaar". They were trying to do engineering and pure R&D at the same time; they lacked focus or any drive to actually ship code; and their development group was too small and inbred.
        [ Parent ]

    • Re:If they managed to create something like this.. (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 13 2006, @11:03AM (#14907983)
      They keep having to rewrite it, because the hardware is improving faster than the ability of EMACS to bog it down.
      [ Parent ]
  • Ok they specify that this "L4Linux" is a modified kernel to allow linux programs to run. Now is it using a virtualiztion layer and running a FULL kernel or is it a PARTIAL kernel that simply provides familliar hooks that the real linux kernel uses.

    If it
    • There has been a similar project before. MkLinux [mklinux.org] for 68K Macs was a port of a Linux to the Mach microkernel (same microkernel used by OSF/1, Nextstep, and OS X).
        • Uhh... no. A linux kernel, running under Xen, on any x86 cpu, is virtualized. On non-vanderpool CPUs, the kernel has been recompiled so that it doesn't invoke certain classes of instructions, but it's still being run in a fully virtualized environment.

  • Anyone have a torrent? (Score:5, Informative)

    by jarom (899827) on Monday March 13 2006, @10:32AM (#14907679)
    Anyone have a torrent, or has downloaded the ISO and can make one?

  • Trusted computing (Score:3, Insightful)

    by js_sebastian (946118) on Monday March 13 2006, @10:38AM (#14907722)
    This kind of thing goes to show that an OS designed for security can provide it without the need for the so called "trusted computing": the user can still have the machine entirely under your own control.. programs can be isolated from each other so that keylogging and other spyware techniques do not work, but the user can still do what the hell he wants with his machine (including tampering with the "secure" applications he is using if he wants to).

      • I trust myself. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by js_sebastian (946118) on Monday March 13 2006, @11:32AM (#14908261)
        That's assuming the user can be trusted
        I don't care if they trust me. I'm the one buying the computer and I trust myself to use it however I see fit (and if I break any laws with it I can be tried for it, same as with my kitchen knife if I use it to stab someone).

        Aside from this, it's true that having a hardware safe for cryptographic private keys (the fritz chip) is sound from a security perspective (while takign control of what the chip will or will not sign away from the user is bad).

        The reason I was comparing this TUD OS with TC is that the intel and AMD TC platforms both implement memory curtaining to isolate programs from one another, which this project seems to do quite nicely with a software-only solution.

        And let me rebuke this OT but blatantly false line:
        DRM is irrelevent to those who don't possess or have any intention of possessing illegal copyrighted content.
        It is relevant to anyone who has any interest to legally buying content which is sold with DRM restrictions. Even in the best of worlds, where the content sellers play nice, DRM stops me from playing something I bought from company X on anything but the players approved by company X. (iTunes audio files on anything but an iPod?). And if company X goes out of buisness or just decides not to support that format anymore you may be unable to play those files ever again.

        And in the real world, companies which can effectively write a different copyright law for each piece of content will use this to their advantage and to the user's disadvantage: to milk more money by selling the same stuff multiple times, and to hinder interoperability in anti-competitive ways.
        [ Parent ]

        • Re:I trust myself. (Score:3, Insightful)

          by shmlco (594907)
          "And if company X goes out of buisness or just decides not to support that format anymore you may be unable to play those files ever again."

          So true. In fact, just yesterday I was trying cram my vast collection of 8-tracks, reel-to-reel tapes, LPs, and ca

          • Re:I trust myself. (Score:3, Insightful)

            by I(rispee_I(reme (310391)
            Yes, but one of the supposed improvements that were hyped when "we bought into" CD's was that they would not degrade over time as do analog formats*. DRM is an attempt to artificially degrade a digital product.

            This was unusually accurate for marketing hype
            • My iTMS songs will degrade in quality over time? Oh my!

              First, CDs may have been "hyped" that way, but any intelligent person soon realized that you had to handle them with care as not to scratch them, not leave them in the car in direct sunlight, and so

      • Re:Trusted Complaining. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by onkelonkel (560274)
        "DRM is irrelevent to those who don't possess or have any intention of possessing illegal copyrighted content."

        Wow, is that statement ever wrong. As wrong as could be. "None more wrong"

        Generally DRM only affects legitimate users. If I buy a copy protec
          • And what part of "do not have anything to do with" do you not understand? If you have only approved content in your possession (you created or someone else created and said it was OK)? Then DRM is absolutely irrelevent.

            You changed the language. You origina

            • Re:Redefining terms. (Score:2, Insightful)

              by ray-auch (454705)
              It's legal for me to rip a CD whether it's protected by Sony's DRM or not.

              Lucky you. In many places it is not, regardless of DRM. In some places, the act of circumventing the DRM makes it illegal. The GP didn't specify a jurisdiction.

              It's legal for me
              • In many places it is not, regardless of DRM. In some places, the act of circumventing the DRM makes it illegal.

                Erm, if your computer is properly secured you will never know that Sony's DRM is on the disc, because your computer won't be looking for files on

                • Erm, if your computer is properly secured you will never know that Sony's DRM is on the disc, because your computer won't be looking for files on an audio CD.

                  Exactly (I think ?). If it doesn't look for files, doesn't auto-run them etc. (ie. it is properly
                  • So, DRM has limited my legal activities, right ? Wrong - it has only stopped me doing something which is actually illegal

                    I've already addressed this.

                    The original statement I was responding to was an unconditional statement that unless you (the generic you)

                    • Not "unless you want to break the law or you live in a country with restrictive copyright law".

                      I think you mean non-restrictive copyright law (so not a Berne signatory I guess ?) - or it doesn't make sense. Either way, the OP could have been correct in th
      • DRM is irrelevent to those who don't possess or have any intention of possessing illegal copyrighted content.

        That should read...

        "DRM is irrelevent to those who don't possess or have any intention of possessing copyrighted content."

        It doesn't matter if it's

  • TurdOS, Dope (Score:3, Insightful)

    by zerojoker (812874) on Monday March 13 2006, @10:47AM (#14907827)
    and I always thought that germans are known to have no sense of humor...

  • Explanation of the naming (Score:5, Informative)

    by Florian (2471) <cantsin@zedat.fu-berlin.de> on Monday March 13 2006, @11:02AM (#14907977) Homepage
    "TUD:OS" is simply an acronym of "Technical University Dresden Operating System". Their computer science department has done amazing work on the l4 microkernel, and continues to release all its code under free licenses, btw.
  • multiple L4Linux kernels running at the same time on top of a custom L4 microkernel
    Sorry if this is a stupid/obvious question, but is this similar to HURD?
    • Not really, no. The HURD is a project to implement a Unix-like API on top of a microkernel (originally Mach, now L4) as a set of servers. This is distinctly different from running an entire Linux kernel as a single L4 process (which is what is done with

        • Re:How does this compare to HURD? (Score:2, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          At a glance, it looks like they have something like the HURD:

          L4VFS is the IO infrastructure for a Posix-like multi-server system on top L4 and DROPS. It comprises a set of client-side libraries gluing together typical C library functions in the client and

  • That's great. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Kickasso (210195)
    I wonder if they're able to load closed-source drivers like nvidia, and have accelerated OpenGL graphics...

  • Naming??! (Score:3, Funny)

    by cerberusss (660701) <slashdot@@@vankuik...nl> on Monday March 13 2006, @02:16PM (#14909814) Homepage Journal
    From the screenshots:

    ...applications running natively on the L4/Fiasco microkernel

    Indeed, a complete fiasco ;-)

  • First, I had to install proprietary software, mvplayer, to run it.

    When I had tudos up and running I tried the qtdemo, but after I browsed the pages descibing how great it was, it wouldn't work. Then I tried the games. Quake wouldn't run, it just gave a b

    • Re:Not impressed (Score:4, Informative)

      by ArsenneLupin (766289) on Monday March 13 2006, @04:11PM (#14910773)
      First, I had to install proprietary software, mvplayer, to run it.

      Wrong.

      It runs in qemu just fine. It's even described on their site how to do it.

      And you can always burn it onto a physical CD-Rom, and boot it up in a physical machine.

      several of the demos didn't supply a "reboot" option so I had to exit the whole thing, delete the vmware files, except the vmx, and refire wmplayer so I could get the tudos menu again. It's been years since I've run a Linux distro that was this buggy or hard to use.

      It's a CD-based demo, so your vmware files won't have "state" in them anyways. Just kill your vmware, and restart it, without wiping any files.

      [ Parent ]
    • ok. Runs in QEMU. Running it within VMWare is not going to be fast, nor will it have very reliable video, so no, Quake doesn't work from within VMWare. The QT Demo gave me some trouble too, but like said, it runs slow in a virtualized machine (not as sl
    • OK, if that was just some weird kind of troll, more power to you, I guess. But otherwise, I'm afraid you have to turn in your /. uid and be reissued with a 6-digit one, which is the standard procedure for the poster of a -9, Clueless post.
    • "reinventing the wheel year after year without ever innovating something first"

      I imagine a whole new breed of wheels here ... perhaps some will be even more or less round ;-)
      • Actually, these guys seem to have developed and worked the major bugs out of the hover pad. What needs done now is to slap a car on them puppies.
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