Re: A niche for the Hurd - next step: reality check

[Arne Babenhauserheide]

Am Donnerstag 13 November 2008 10:11:32 schrieb Michal Suchanek:
> How is this easier than carrying around an eeepc/olpc?

I can use the processing power of the system at hand instead of having to rely 
on my laptops speed. 

This means: I won't have to carry a whole system. When there's a Hurd on a 
Computer I can turn it into a system where I feel at home with far less 
effort. 

> I understand a flash drive could be lighter but you can just boot from
> the flash drive on bare hardware or in full virtualization - i do not
> see what the Hurd can bring here.

It brings access to all the systems resources, including stuff which isn't 
supported on a normal OS you might have on your USB-stick. 

> And if you run sparc and you come to a ppc you are out of luck anyway

Not with translators written in Lisp (or some other interpreted/JIT compiled 
language). 

With them you can just start your translators on any hardware. 

> so the ultimate solution is to invest into making hardware lightweight
> when it comes to carrying your environment around with you.

When you make hardware more lightweight, you'll also be able to put more of it 
into heavywheight machines, so you can still make a heavy machine far more 
powerful than a laptop (or get more power for the same price). 

> The problem is that any application is equally dangerous. 

I'd rather say "any application you normally open is equally dangerous". 

But with restricted environments it would be possible to autostart 
applications without endangering the system. 

Just look at what people do with Java Webstart. Java can confine applications. 
With the Hurd any kind of applications could be confined in a similar way. 

> When your
> PNG library has a buffer overflow a virus can be carried by otherwise
> normal looking picture. Now if you consider your browser dangerous and
> enclose into a subhurd you can still download the image, and view it
> with a viewer that is not enclosed and also links to the broken
> library.

This is for normally safe programs which get a bug. 

As an example of the difference: Would you open a Python script I sent you 
without first looking at the code? 

With the Hurd you could just execute it in a subhurd in superunprivileged mode 
and see what it does without having to fear for your system. 

Best wishes, 
Arne
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