If you have been following alternative operating systems for a while, there is a good change that you have herd of Hurd. It has been in development since before Linux, and yet it is still not stable. This kernel with a super cool logo is super powerful. I am going to tell you where you can get it, why you might want to check it out, and some of it’s drawbacks.
  • iortega@lemmy.eus
    10·
    3 years ago

    I don’t think the reason not to use GNU Hurd is that “development takes SO LONG”. Hurd’s development is so slow because there is already a free kernel (Linux), so there is currently not much need to continue developing another kernel. It is true though that Hurd is much more complex that Linux, because of it being based on servers and not on a monolith kernel, slowing even more the development.

    In my opinion, the actual reason that currently makes Hurd an unusable system, is the lack of support for hardware. If I’m not wrong, if you want to successfully run Hurd, you need to use it inside a VM. Linux is just too dominant, making many many many developers end up creating and mantaining any existing hardware. That is just too hard currently for Hurd.

    I hope Hurd becomes usable someday, though. I don’t want to keep using Linux forever.