janneke · HackerTrans

2 tahun yang laludiscuss

It can get even funnier when Chris Baines replaces the Nix daemon with a new implementation in Guile. Then, the NIH argument can be reused instead.

janneke

3 tahun yang laludiscuss

That's a great compliment as I think the core vision of GNU is that all software should be free (<https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.en.html>).

Although keeping software proprietary or writing proprietary software may have become somewhat unpopular in some niches (I'm not sure it's incredible unpopular seeing how many people and institutions still use and often advocate Apple, MicroSoft, use FaceBook, WhatsApp, whatsnot...), I'm not yet convinced that many people (say more than 1%) really believe that all software should be free and act on that?

janneke

3 tahun yang laludiscuss

Have you tried reading the code? It's twice as large (107KLOC) as ext4 (45KLOC), where ext4 is viewed as a natural evolution of ext2 (7KLOC).

45KLOC of C code already sounds really scary to me, although yeah, journaling is really nice to have.

janneke

3 tahun yang laludiscuss

GNU is not an ecosystem (see <https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.en.html#Ecosys...>), it's a philosophy.

Yes, it's old. Yes, there's only little interest. Yes, there are _still_ many technical problems.

The interesting thing here is that technical problems can be solved, and will be solved given enough time. Heck, I've heard rumors that even Windows does not crash multiple times a day anymore.

Focussing and working on what is popular will most likely create a world that is less free every year. Some people rather work on something that seems right and promises a better, freer future. Even if it's not popular (right now), even if it has a high probability of failure.

Popularity is a very volatile property...

janneke

3 tahun yang laludiscuss

Hurd does not support USB devices, officially, just yet, but these are surely exciting times. Unless maybe you're a capitalist ;-) <https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2023-06/msg00158...>

janneke

3 tahun yang laludiscuss

By reading the fine manual (<https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Virtualization-Serv...>) or blog post (<https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2020/childhurds-and-substitutes...>).

TL;DR; Add this

    (service hurd-vm-service-type
             (hurd-vm-configuration
              (disk-size (* 5000 (expt 2 20))) ;5G
              (memory-size 1024)))             ;1024MiB

GNU Shepherd system service description to your system configuration, and reconfigure; then just do something like

    sudo herd start childhurd
    ssh -p 10022 root@localhost

If you're not using Guix System, you can still download a prebuilt QEMU image from <https://guix.gnu.org/en/download/latest/>:

    wget -O hurd-latest.img https://ci.guix.gnu.org/search/latest/image?query=spec:images+status:success+system:x86_64-linux+hurd-barebones.qcow2

and do something like:

    qemu-system-i386 -m 2048 --enable-kvm --hda hurd-latest.img

Enjoy!

janneke

3 tahun yang laludiscuss

Rumpdisk on a GNU Guix childhurd: https://toot.aquilenet.fr/@civodul/110848429561223704

just one simple `guix system reconfigure' away!

Guix Hurd on my thinkpad x60: https://todon.nl/@janneke/110451493405777898

yeah, that's real (old, but not ancient) iron.

Enjoy!

janneke

3 tahun yang laludiscuss

What I don't understand is why people are so willing to install and run opaque binary blobs, even is it's from/supporting free software-hostile Evil Corp. I've been running GNU Guix, which uses Linux-Libre--i.e., no blobs-- on my Dell XPS-13 and Lenovo x270. The only change I needed to make to buy my freedom was install an atheros wifi card (yeah, proprietary bios sucks, buy puri.sm).

And while Guix/Hurd isn't there yet as a daily driver (Debian/Hurd is much more polished), progress has been pretty exciting lately and it now runs on my IBM x60 -- https://todon.nl/@janneke/110451493405777898

janneke

4 tahun yang laludiscuss

Ah no, there is no competition, at least not yet ;)

Stage0---of with cc_x86.c is a part---as a project started off from the bottom (hex0) and is working up. When stage0 just started, I created GNU Mes soon to be folowed by MesCC, which aimed to build a version of TinyCC and the remaining bootstrap for GNU Guix. The first versions of mescc had its own linker, which was later in a joint effortt replaced by M1 and hex2 from MesCC-Tools (also part of Stage0.

My initial idea for Mes was to translate it by hand to assembly, so the M1 assembler would come in handy. As it turned out, cc_x86.c and its next step M2-Planet were developed as part of Stage0.

Starting from an 357-byte hex0 provided by the bootstrap-seeds, Stage0-posix builds hex0, kaem, hex1, catm, hex2, M0, cc_x86, M1, M2, get_machine, (mescc-tools), and M2-Planet. M2-Planet in turn builds Mes, which builds a bootstrappable TinyCC, etc.

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