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Comment by taf2 | Hacker News Reader

So now I’m just waiting to hear Microsoft is switching its kernel to Linux. Especially after the switch to chromium.

From what I understand NT already abstracts Win 32/64 APIs roughly the same way it abstracts the POSIX ones -- if they switched to Linux kernel + an abstraction layer for Win 64 (Official Microsoft Wine, basically) that's one less kernel and one less abstraction to maintain (WSL replaced by the kernel's native interface). I would happily pay for and operate such a product -- especially if I could install such a "Windows" as a subsystem upon some otherwise unmodified Linux distribution.

Primary issue with this would be driver support. Also there is value in the NT kernal itself in my opinion.

Because?

What advantages does it offer?

Read Windows Internals. It's a very different design from Linux. Worth learning about another approach to operating systems if you're at all interested.

WNT evolved (spiritually) from VMS and has a lot of unique things in its structure.

Note also that Windows already kind of is a perfectly serviceable Linux kernel through WSL. That's one of the unique things about NT - it was designed for binary compatibility for programs written for several distinct systems.

This compatibility layer approach is quite common. Solaris Linux Branded Zones and FreeBSD Linux Emulation Layer (now defunct?) also did the same thing.

> perfectly serviceable Linux kernel through WSL

Namespaces/cgroups?

> Primary issue with this would be driver support.

Perhaps hardware vendors would just start dedicating more effort to Linux drivers development then. Nevertheless the way drivers work in Windows (separate programs instead of kernel modules) is still better itself.

WSL doesn't actually run a Linux kernel - it's a linux api mapping, just like csrss is a Win32 mapping, to the windows kernel calls. So they're already only running one kernel, but it's NT.

"One less kernel" here didn't refer to them having a linux kernel and not needing it, it referred to them having and maintaining NT but not needing it (instead, utilizing an external Linux kernel).

Not sure if a joke, but I'd absolutely love this. I, as a consumer, would gladly pay good money to be able to use Outlook and the MS Office suite. Regardless of what anyone claims, the linux alternatives are useable but not nearly as good. I used to use Windows with Cygwin, but found I spent way more time doing linux-y things than Windows-y things...so switched away.

Why not Mac? Best of both worlds.

I would have said the same thing a year ago. Today not so much because Apple hardware prices have skyrocketed. It used to be that a Mac cost 2x the PC equivalent, but now the cost is reaching 3x. For many, especially considering engineering salaries, that's justified. To me, having the familiar GNU toolchain and Linux configuration available at any moment without having to use a VM or Homebrew is worth the downgrade in eye candy.

>Today not so much because Apple hardware prices have skyrocketed.

He said

>I, as a consumer, would gladly pay good money to be able to use Outlook and the MS Office suite.

You can do that on a Mac.

> Today not so much because Apple hardware prices have skyrocketed.

Have they? Or have PC prices fallen fast and far? It’s hard to compare due to the product continually changing (insert some sort of apples with apples joke), but it looks to me like Mac prices have fallen.

https://everymac.com/global-mac-prices/mac-prices-us-usa-uni...

Personal preference. I don't dislike Apple, I just don't like being so tied to hardware. I've got this little custom NUC I do all my dev work on and have come to really enjoy it. Also, I've come to prefer many things about linux, especially its interface(yes, really).

That would be a tragedy. VMS has much to teach about other ways to do things.

The irony is, with Windows 10/2019, it's the other way around: Linux has switched its kernel to NT. See WSL.

GNU/WindowsNT

GNU/Xenix is making a come back !!

for those you who don't remember Xenix was Microsoft's UNIX that it marketted prior to releasing DOS. Originally the idea was Xenix was the multi-user OS, DOS was the single user.

Yes. They shipped a functional userland and shell this time, and targeted developers. And it stuck.

> Linux has switched its kernel to NT. See WSL

This makes absolutely no sense. Linux is a kernel. If Linux 'switched its kernel to NT', it would not be Linux. Perhaps you meant the userspace, which is not dependent upon the kernel?

WSL is an implementation of the Linux kernel ABI on top of the NT kernel.

Typical Linux user space does depend on the kernel ABI – most significantly via glibc, systemd and friends, but also to various degrees up through the stack.

> Typical Linux user space does depend on the kernel ABI

Not really. There are some exceptions (systemd), but there are libc implementations for other kernels, and the GNU userland definitely runs on other kernels without a hard dependency on any Linux kernel ABI.

At a macro level, there are plenty of syscalls not wrapped by glibc that are used regularly in userspace. Then there's the micro level assumptions of behaviour. Look at the list of "doesn't work on WSL" software and all the bug fixes to get boring, every day stuff to run on it (or LX zones, or BSD personalities, or…)

If you know enough to say:

> Linux is a kernel.

You also know that 'Linux' is more commonly used as a description of the userspace and other common software. You are starting an unnecessary argument.

And that description is wrong. The userpsace and other common software is not necessarily tied to the Linux kernel.

Case in point, this whole article is about software originally developed for OpenBSD. OpenSSH has nothing to do with Linux.

I agree that software isn't Linux specific. That doesn't prove your point or make your original post less obviously looking to start an argument where none exists.

I would terminate my apple dependency in a heart beat.

Whilst I prefer Linux Distros as OSs to Windows, I genuinely believe the NT kernel has a lot of good stuff, and is definitely better on a lot of stuff (e.g. security)

Or they could open source their Kernel ?

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