Debian GNU/kFreeBSD is working quite well
Also lately the trend is more in the opposite direction: there are projects for running the FreeBSD userland on top of the Linux kernel.
To me this is the expected thing to happen for the open source UNIX world: a lot of modular pieces floating around, and people assembling them in various different way, and in the end we will never have two machines running the exact same software. You want a C compiler? We have two! You want a kernel? We have 4! A C library, there are 5 of them!
This is the very reason we are doing Haiku: trying to build something in a single place with a single developer team, and not having to agree witl all these projects on where the boundaries between the different parts should be.
Last I heard it was quite an old debian version, but then I am not sure whether that project uses the freebsd linux layer or tries to port to FreebSD native kapi. Haven’t really messed around with that since I used FreeBSD (so 3 to 4 years ago or something)
Interesting to hear that it is working nicely though, such projects might be good to discover bugs :)
With updates in early 2020 to this specific package (the kernel) and I also saw some work on upgrading to the FreeBSD 11 kernel. So, yes, not the most active project, sure.
Anyway, I think this gets my point about the modularity of open source UNIX. And I didn’t even pick the most unlikely attempt. There was also Debian GNU MiNT that runs the Debian userspace on top of the MiNT operating system, which is a late operating system for Atari ST/TT machines adding multitasking and some level of UNIX compatibility (and later on several parts were replaced by open source equivalents): http://web.archive.org/web/20080411172105/http://debian-mint.nocrew.org:80/
And for completeness, during one of the RMLL meetups we had a booth next to the Arch Linux one, and they had the Arch Hurd maintainer there. When he discovered that Haiku already had Wifi and USB support, he started thinking about the possibility of a Arch GNU/Haiku distribution. I think nothing came out of it, however.
This statement disregards all the enterprise users and developers. Consider the world of high-performance computing, done by a lot of the US national labs. Also consider the Super Computing conference, and all the components the HPC ecosystem.
Can confirm. Lots of RedHat & IBM developers routinely work on QEMU (look at the redhat.com and other business email addresses in the mailing list), the Linux kernel, gcc, etc. I’ve been following the IBM contributions for the kernel and gcc for POWER10.
Linux, whatever you think of it, it not going anywhere, and has more money/support than just what Google/Android contributes. I would say that Linux has won the server market as well, from most websites, to cloud infrastructure.
There was a fairly recent episode of Late Night Linux where they discuss how relatively small the contributions are to Linux from Android or Chrome OS, which I haven’t validated but seems plausible.
GNU operating system is not something that really exists. The are no official distribution of GNU OS and there are no mandatory components of that OS. Even libc have multiple variants: glibc and musl.
you carry on with enterprise linux, which, is a minority outside of servers. most client’s are windows based, the bulk of the install devices, by percentage are Android or other dedicated use iot embeeded devices, most of which will jump to fuchsia.
Just a practically irrelevant suggestion for how to remember how to spell Fuchsia:
It’s the name of a popular flowering plant, originally given its binomial “Latin” name after botanist Leonhart Fuchs. Which would means it’s pronounced fu-k-si-a. Alas in English we’re not very good at that kind of thing, so we pronounce it fyu-shi-a, but you can’t think that pronunciation and guess how to spell it, you have to remember Fuchs.
GNU/Linux. Otherwise, OSF/1 (i.e. DEC Tru64, IBM AIX, IRIX, HP/UX, NeXT, other variants).
Note: Linux had the marketing clout from magazines, hobbyists, universities, and sponsors. Otherwise, the high-end home hobbyists had either a PowerMac or Amiga 1000/2000/3000/4000. SysVR4 had a $4000 USD pricetag for admission and came on 8+ floppies (i.e AMIX) back then. Linux distros were free and distributed by the Linux mags. So, GNU/Linux took off.
Hilghlander: “There can be only one”
And it will be HAIKU, his logo is prophetic, when surfing the web will be a pleasure and many drivers, apps and platforms will be supported.
Well there is only to wait a few more dozen of years, I just hope I’m not too old to be able to enjoy it
