Re: [PATCH v3 4/6] hurd: Add expected abilist files for x86_64

[Samuel Thibault]

Sergey Bugaev, le mar. 02 mai 2023 21:46:14 +0300, a ecrit:
> On Tue, May 2, 2023 at 7:48 PM Samuel Thibault <samuel.thibault@gnu.org> 
> wrote:
> > This will be just the fourth time that this part of the Hurd gets
> > reimplemented?
> >
> > I mean, I agree that some pieces can be added to the picture and things
> > be improved, but I see that part getting reimplemented by people having
> > great ambitions for it, and then it gets reimplemented again and again.
> 
> Then perhaps you could tell me more about the history, so we can avoid
> repeating the mistakes of the past :)

Basically, overengineering = never really finished and integrated.

> I'm vaguely aware that /hurd/startup was a full-blown init system some
> time ago

? No, before it got renamed to startup, it was indeed called init, but
wasn't doing much more than what startup does: basically start the
bootstrap processes and watch them a bit, and give hand to the runsystem
shell script which would just run the init rc scripts.

> and then it was made to only do what is required to bring up enough of
> a Unix environment to then run a third-part init system.

I believe it's better to separate the hurdish pieces from the unixish
pieces, yes, so distributions can change the unixish part as desired.

> I'm aware of the bootshell proposal, but it seems to have never made
> it into the mainline Hurd. That letter also mentions that there was
> once a 'serverboot' which apparently did all the bootscript things
> that gnumach and boot(1) do now?

I don't remember.

Samuel