> However, afaik, these days the designs of Mach and Hurd aren't looked upon very highly, the stability advantages of microkernels aren't as important anymore with rock solid traditional kernels, and instead of figuring out how to empower non-root users on Unix systems we just give everyone their own VM.
On the commercial world you have Symbian and QNX as examples of micro-kernels OS.
Microsoft is doing research how to run the full OS as a library on top of a pico-hipervisor (Drawbridge).
And Minix just got a EU grant for their research in micro-kernels and security.
Sometimes I think Linux is happy just copying the UNIX and Mainframe designs, without much OS innovation.
> Sometimes I think Linux is happy just copying the UNIX and Mainframe designs, without much OS innovation.
This is difficult to answer, but I'll try. Note that this is from merely an interested person's view, I'm not a kernel dev or anything.
Linux has to strike a balance between compatibility, stability and innovation. The goal of Linux isn't "OS innovation", the kernel people would rather that innovation occur in userspace (at least from my reading of the tea leaves), and that is happening a lot.
However, Linux doesn't have the power to "break out" and try something radically different, as it has actual users with billions of dollars invested in Linux that rely on its stability and its compatibility with the hardware and software they use.
Symbian and QNX are not mainstream kernels, as they really only exist in embedded devices, and really only support ARM and a couple other architectures.
Minix, GNU/Hurd and the Microsoft research are just that - research. No user base to speak of, no commercial uses, etc.
I think the most successful microkernel wasn't actually micro, but a hybrid - Windows NT.
On the commercial world you have Symbian and QNX as examples of micro-kernels OS.
Microsoft is doing research how to run the full OS as a library on top of a pico-hipervisor (Drawbridge).
And Minix just got a EU grant for their research in micro-kernels and security.
Sometimes I think Linux is happy just copying the UNIX and Mainframe designs, without much OS innovation.