Comment by mdaniel
7 days ago
Surely if Windows kernel can be taught to respond to those syscalls, XNU can be taught it even easier. But, AIUI the Windows kernel already had a concept of "personalities" from back when they were trying to integrate OS/2 so that zero-to-one for XNU could be a huge lift, not the syscalls part specifically
WSL1 didn't use the existing support for personalities in NT
XNU similarly has a concept of "flavors" and uses FreeBSD code to provide the BSD flavor. Theoretically, either Linux code or a compatibility layer could be implemented in the kernel in a similar way. The former won't happen due to licensing.
> the Windows kernel already had a concept of "personalities" from back when they were trying to integrate OS/2 so that zero-to-one for XNU could be a huge lift, not the syscalls part specifically
XNU is modular, with its BSD servers on top of Mach. I don’t see this as being a strong advantage of NT.
Exactly. So it wouldn't necessarily be easier. NT is almost a microkernel.
Yep. People consistently underestimate the great piece of technology NT is, it really was ahead of its time. And a shame what Microsoft is doing with it now.
Was it ahead? I am not sure. There was lots of research on microkernels at the time and NT was a good compromise between a mono and a microkernel. It was an engineering product of its age. A considerably good one. It is still the best popular kernel today. Not because it is the best possible with today's resouces but because nobody else cares about core OS design anymore.
I think it is the Unix side that decided to burry their heads into sand. We got Linux. It is free (of charge or licensing). It supported files, basic drivers and sockets. It got commercial support for servers. It was all Silicon Valley needed for startups. Anything else is a cost. So nobody cared. Most of the open source microkernel research slowly died after Linux. There is still some with L4 family.
Now we are overengineering our stacks to get closer to microkernel capabilities that Linux lacks using containers. I don't want to say it is ripe for disruption becuse it is hard and again nobody cares (except some network and security equipment but that's a tiny fraction).
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