Ubuntu aims at healing Linux's 'paper cuts'

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Somebody please write a modern OS from scratch

Start with a clean slate. Cast a tiny kernel in stone. Make it read-only to everything. Hell, put it in a quick-boot ROM, even. Virtualize and sandbox every non-kernel process in the entire system. Weave in a secure version of a self-healing file system like ZFS from Sun. Build-in IPv6 with DES-level secure protocols from the ground up. Make file, hardware, system, and communications security a required part of the operating system rather than an optional add on. Define a few very strict hardware device protocols, build in support for those few, and don't allow any hardware which does not conform to spec. Make the OS both massively parallel and multi-threaded. Create tools which embrace and incorporate both so our future generation 10,000 core CPUs just work from the start. Make it lean and fast. Make it boot in under 10 seconds. Give it a hardware accelerated GUI and hardware accelerated media capabilities from the start. Media encoding and decoding should be open source and specified in hardware. Keep the GUI SIMPLE and intuitive. Make the OS dirt cheap or free by selling vendors a secure key or license for developing compatible hardware. Maybe charge for software development kits. Either way, it needs to be free to end users and perhaps even computer makers for it to get adopted or offered quickly. So, avoid licensing old crap from the current crop of patent trolls who now sell 20th century OSes.

Basically, write us a brand-new 21st century OS so we can all stop using the wide variety of crappy, antique, hacked-together 20th century OSes we are currently stuck with. There really isn't a great OS to be found right now.

Hell, maybe Linus Torvalds needs to write a new OS from scratch using everything he has learned in the past few decades. Here is his chance to start with a clean slate and do all the things he wishes he had done differently the first time. Or maybe the best hackers in the world need to team up and show us and him how it's done right. A lot of people are ready for something totally different and new. We need to find the Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Steve Wozniak of THIS generation.

Or maybe there needs to be a 21sth Century OS X-Prize! Offer a million dollars to the first person, university, or company to develop an OS and C/C++ compiler which meets all the criteria I listed above.

Posted by: BillDem   Posted on: 07/16/09 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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