The Register (a proper old-skool IT magazine - plenty of content on different operating systems and healthy skepticism of trendy stuff like “AI” and driver-less cars) has recently published a series of articles based on this year’s Fosdem talk by one of their contributors. It dealt with Plan 9 as a “better UNIX than UNIX” and suggested a way to reduce Linux’s software bloat by - and I simplify - adopting Plan 9 on which each Linux program opens in its own cut-down distro.
The author considers this better than compatibility layers that - for us - already allow haiku apps to work on other systems such as Hyclone (targets on Linux), Haiku on Genode, and another one for BSD.
Genode is designed explicitly to run virtual machines. I was looking at the latest Genode release and the rate of progress is amazing, as they follow their roadmap for this year. They have rebuilt their networking system, rebuilt their audio system for low latency, and loads more. As developers paid to push the envelope they are able to keep up nosebleed progress that a purely voluntary system is unable.
I have admired the progress of Genode for a while but had no use for it. Inspired by Liam Proven’s articles, I think it might be time to ride this galloping horse.
My idea is to have a “quiver” of different Haiku images for different tasks, thereby dealing with problems caused by Haiku being single user and root privileges. To this end I aim to acquire a computer that can run Genode and wonder if anyone has successfully run Haiku in a virtual machine on Genode. What was the experience like? The next Sculpt release incorporating recent Genode improvements arrives next month so I have some time to find a machine.
Would I be barking up the right tree? Or would Plan 9 (as discussed in aforementioned Fosdem talk) be a better bet for virtualization?