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    Asterinas: OS kernel written in Rust and providing Linux-compatible ABI

    (github.com)
    364 points Klasiaster | 13 comments | 15 Oct 24 12:01 UTC | HN request time: 1.25s | source | bottom
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    weinzierl ◴[15 Oct 24 22:40 UTC] No.41853874[source]▶
    Decades ago Linus Torvalds was asked in an interview if he feared Linux to be replaced by something new. His answer was that some day someone young and hungry would come along, but unless they liked writing device drivers Linux would be safe.

    This is all paraphrased from my memory, so take it with a grain of salt. I think the gist of it is still valid: Projects like Asterinas are interesting and have a place, but they will not replace Linux as we have it today.

    (Asterinas, from what I understood, doesn't claim to replace Linux, but it a common expectation.)

    replies(5): >>41853994 #>>41854663 #>>41856026 #>>41857123 #>>41859532 #
    1. linsomniac ◴[16 Oct 24 01:01 UTC] No.41854663[source]▶
    I feel like there's a potentially large audience for a kernel that targets running in a VM. For a lot of workloads, a simple VM kernel could be a win.
    replies(5): >>41855296 #>>41856571 #>>41857226 #>>41857837 #>>41859876 #
    2. yjftsjthsd-h ◴[16 Oct 24 03:21 UTC] No.41855296[source]▶
    How is that different from Linux with all virtio drivers? (You can just not compile real hardware drivers)
    replies(3): >>41855781 #>>41857826 #>>41858114 #
    3. m463 ◴[16 Oct 24 05:02 UTC] No.41855781[source]▶
    I would imagine that virtualized device drivers would have a well-defined api and vastly simplified logic.
    replies(2): >>41855928 #>>41857243 #
    4. yjftsjthsd-h ◴[16 Oct 24 05:34 UTC] No.41855928{3}[source]▶
    I imagine they do. But given that Linux has those simple drivers, why not use them?
    5. pjmlp ◴[16 Oct 24 07:42 UTC] No.41856571[source]▶
    This is already the reality today with native cloud computing, managed runtimes.

    It doesn't matter how the language gets deployed, if the runtime is on a container, a distroless container, or directly running on an hypervisor.

    The runtime provides enough OS like services for the programming language purposes.

    6. prmoustache ◴[16 Oct 24 09:42 UTC] No.41857226[source]▶
    this x1000

    Provided you have virtio support you are ticking a lot of boxes already.

    7. prmoustache ◴[16 Oct 24 09:44 UTC] No.41857243{3}[source]▶
    Shouldn't we start building hardware that have a builtin translation layer that makes them driveable by virtio drivers themselves? At least for the most capabilities?
    replies(1): >>41867465 #
    8. lmm ◴[16 Oct 24 11:21 UTC] No.41857826[source]▶
    The point is it would be better than Linux in whatever way that was the reason you were writing it, but you don't have to write hundreds of different device drivers to make your cool new kernel usable.
    9. lmm ◴[16 Oct 24 11:22 UTC] No.41857837[source]▶
    Those workloads would probably be better off as unikernels that can run directly on the VM, avoiding the question of which kernel to use entirely.
    replies(1): >>41858091 #
    10. rcxdude ◴[16 Oct 24 12:03 UTC] No.41858091[source]▶
    There's a difference between "want to run an application with as little extra move parts on a VM" and "want to take an existing system and swap out for a kernel with some better properties, even if it means needing to run it in a VM"
    11. rcxdude ◴[16 Oct 24 12:05 UTC] No.41858114[source]▶
    If it's written in rust, you might expect less security vulnerabilities (especially if the codebase is also smaller: NB this is potentially counterbalanced by the many eyes on linux). Maybe there would be some extra features you find useful.
    12. eyberg ◴[16 Oct 24 15:01 UTC] No.41859876[source]▶
    This is a very large rationale for what we are building with https://nanos.org .
    13. SirGiggles ◴[17 Oct 24 08:13 UTC] No.41867465{4}[source]▶
    I might be misremembering but I recall that Nvidia's BlueField DPUs use virtio when communicating with the host machine. From what I gather searching around it's virtio-net in specific