Avie Tevanian Leaving Apple?

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

A SFGate blog reports (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/indexn?blogid=19) that Apple has confirmed that Avie Tevanian will be leaving Apple at the end of March to "pursue other interests".

Avie Tevanian currently holds the position of Chief Software Technology Officer at Apple (http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/tevanian.html) and was previously the vice president of Engineering at NeXT. Tevanian was one of the principal designers and engineers of the Mach operating system on which NEXTSTEP and subsequently Mac OS X were based.

Tevanian had previously been rumored to have been leaving Apple in 2001.

[narco]

So what, now that the OS X transition is complete, there's no need for Avie? I wonder if this is a good move, or a bad move.

Fishes,
narco.

[WildCowboy]

Saw this a bit earlier...a brilliant mind. Apple will be hard-pressed to find another visionary like Avie to lead OS development going forward. Obviously a lot of balls are already rolling and will keep users happy for a while, but they need someone to develop a cohesive plan for the future of the Mac OS.

But then again, maybe some new blood will lead to radical new ideas that could turn out great for users.

[swingerofbirch]

Not Avie! Not now! Not like this! He and Ive are the only good looking blokes at Apple.

[Bosunsfate]

No one person is the center of the company....Even dare I say Steve Jobs:eek:

None the less he was certainly a key leader in the compnay.:(

[goglamosh]

With Avie gone, could we see the possiblity of a Linux based Mac OS in the future? Could get interesting.

[bored]

I wonder if this reporter got the wrong name? We already know Rubenstein is leaving (http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/12904672.htm) on March 31st.

[treblah]

From Daring Fireball (http://daringfireball.net/linked/2006/march#mon-27-tevanian)

Actually, his title was “chief software technology officer”, and from everything I’ve heard, he hasn’t really been much involved with Apple’s software since he took that position almost three years ago (http://daringfireball.net/2003/07/the_good_the_bad_and_the_avie). Still, without question, Tevanian has been hugely influential in the development and design of Mac OS X.

[esaleris]

Short the stock! Maybe. I dunno. I do remember when HP's Fionna (sp) left and the stock went up a couple of million dollars. Must feel good when your departure causes the company to increase in value 10%.

[LordJohnWhorfin]

Maybe now they'll finally be able to ditch the frickin Mach microkernel piece of crap, that Nazi Tevanian has been adamant must be a part of the OS even though it's a performance pit, all because it's his PhD project. He's no visionary, just a reasonably smart hardass who happened to be at the right place at the right time and profited handsomely for it. Watch OSX improve by leaps and bounds as the old guard finally gets kicked out. A bunch of these NeXT alumni seriously have their heads up their collective arses.

[bored]

Flashback to 2001: Avie Tevanian Leaves Apple (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=404). Deja vu?

[iMacZealot]

Aviation who?

Go, don't go...I don't know who you are in the first place.

[cybermiguel]

Maybe now they'll finally be able to ditch the frickin Mach microkernel piece of crap, that Nazi Tevanian has been adamant must be a part of the OS even though it's a performance pit, all because it's his PhD project. He's no visionary, just a reasonably smart hardass who happened to be at the right place at the right time and profited handsomely for it. Watch OSX improve by leaps and bounds as the old guard finally gets kicked out. A bunch of these NeXT alumni seriously have their heads up their collective arses.

In fact, the monolithical kernel structure is old and obsolete and the only OS that uses it is Linux....well, there are certain Linux distros that use microkernel too!...

As you see, most modern OS use microkernels, for various reasons. I invite you to take a look at the BeOS development, QNX development (there are even some nuclear plants that works in an environment based in QNX) and other "modern" Operating Systems (I mean modern by using new concepts of kernel, not the 80s monolithical kernel) and you will know what i'm talking about.

Regards. ^^

[Undecided]

Tevanian was one of the principal designers and engineers of the Mach operating system on which NEXTSTEP and subsequently Mac OS X were based.

Well, I guess his leaving plays into the notion that Apple is moving from the Mac OS being based on Mach to being based on Windows.

Pretty wild.

[Seasought]

He'll be sorely missed (now that I know he is...sort of).

[boncellis]

What other interests, I wonder--you're already at one of the top computer companies in the world...

This seems strange to me, I suspect certain code words like "mutual decision" and "amicable" might be involved.

Just a feeling.

[Mechcozmo]

Maybe now they'll finally be able to ditch the frickin Mach microkernel piece of crap, that Nazi Tevanian has been adamant must be a part of the OS even though it's a performance pit, all because it's his PhD project. He's no visionary, just a reasonably smart hardass who happened to be at the right place at the right time and profited handsomely for it. Watch OSX improve by leaps and bounds as the old guard finally gets kicked out. A bunch of these NeXT alumni seriously have their heads up their collective arses.

Could you elaborate, using coherent sentences and paragraphs? I'm interested, but you aren't exactly telling us in a very good style as to why you're correct, or even partially correct.

Personally, I think that NeXT is a great OS and its evolution into OS X is nothing less that wonderful for us.

[iCraig]

This is not good news IMO.

Avie was and still is the driving force behind Mac OS X, and has a great legacy behind him at NeXT and Apple.

I'd be really sorry to see him go, if it is true.

[Marlor]

In fact, the monolithical kernel structure is old and obsolete and the only OS that uses it is Linux....well, there are certain Linux distros that use microkernel too!...

I assume you mean MkLinux? This isn't really a distro, but an experimental version of Linux that tries to host a Linux implementation on the Mach microkernel.

Many Unix variants (e.g. Solaris) stick with a monolithic kernel, and the use of modules on top of this allows for many of the advantages of microkernels, without the IPC-related performance issues that dog most microkernels.

Even XNU and Windows XP don't have true microkernels, they are "hybrid" kernels. For example, XNU has BSD kernel code in the kernel address space in order to cut down on the microkernel-related latency. In fact, to the "outside world", XNU appears as a monolithic kernel, due to its BSD layer.

There are definitely performance problems with OS X and its kernel. The biggest problem appears to be the fact that kernel-level threads cannot be used by userlevel programs. Also, Mach's fine-grained locking mechanisms are hidden beneath the BSD "monolithic kernel" layer. You can see the impact that the XNU kernel has on performance vs Linux in the (now infamous) graph here:

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2436&p=6

If Apple are going to have a "BSD layer", that essentially hides Mach, then they should just go all the way and use the BSD kernel. This would result in much better performance.

[blufire]

Wiki on the Mach kernel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach_kernel#Performance_problems)

[mgauss]

Working for Steve Jobs must be a 24 hour job. The intensity, the drive, the angst. I think a guy like Avie, that less than 9 years ago was happy making his $ 70K and is now a multi millionaire, is putting his life in perspective. Perhaps 5 or 10 years from now, after he realizes how boring it is to spend "quality time" with one's wife or kids he will come back. Hopefully he won't be a tired dinosaur by then.

In the meantime, Apple is making much more money from iPods than from computers. So the iPod people are being treated with kids gloves, they can do no wrong.

Avie is tired and jealous. He liked Apple better before the iPod. Apple can now hire better people and he sees those brains knocking on the door. He used to be the smartest they could afford, now he sees the new whipper snappers. He probably has no management skills, so basically his own success fired him...he got fired by himself. The pathetic Wozniak phenomenom. Hey at least he is rich now sipping champagne in the south of France.

He also might be wanting to be his own boss. And a miserable one he will be, an order taker is an order taker.

[boncellis]

...If Apple are going to have a "BSD layer", that essentially hides Mach, then they should just go all the way and use the BSD kernel. This would result in much better performance.

Just from what you cited I tend to agree. Does anyone else think the timing of this is odd? If Dr. Tevanian's departure is rumored for the end of this month, does that somehow correspond with the release of 10.5?

Could it be done already, or is it Dr. Tevanian's involvement that's done? Just curious.

[narco]

In the meantime, Apple is making much more money from iPods than from computers. So the iPod people are being treated with kids gloves, they can do no wrong.

I read somewhere the other day that Mac sales still exceed iPod sales. Is this not true?

Fishes,
narco.

[bluebomberman]

There's a helluva lot of speculation, negativity, and Mach-kernel bashing based on incredibly limited info. The guy's probably worth millions by now; he doesn't need a valid reason to pack his bags and go.

Mayabe he's burnt out. Maybe he wants to join a Segway polo league. Maybe he wants to devote his time to philantropy. Maybe he's going to Microsoft. Whatever. As with all not-evil people moving on with their lives, I wish him the best regardless.

(And then I pray profusely that Mac OS X doesn't turn into a bloated, outdated, insecure, crappy OS.)

[Austin.xstone]

I wish him well, its a shame I dont know who he is but thats not the point...:o

Good Luck!

[iCraig]

I wish him well, its a shame I dont know who he is but thats not the point...:o

Good Luck!

http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/tevanian.html

[maverick13]

Just from what you cited I tend to agree. Does anyone else think the timing of this is odd? If Mr. Tevanian's departure is rumored for the end of this month, does that somehow correspond with the release of 10.5?

Could it be done already, or is it Mr. Tevanian's involvement that's done? Just curious.

I remember reading a while back, when Dr Tevanian got his promotion he got out of the Mac OS X Development sometime after Panther. So Panther was the last OS X he oversaw. Tiger was overseen by another.

[mdriftmeyer]

Working for Steve Jobs must be a 24 hour job. The intensity, the drive, the angst. I think a guy like Avie, that less than 9 years ago was happy making his $ 70K and is now a multi millionaire, is putting his life in perspective. Perhaps 5 or 10 years from now, after he realizes how boring it is to spend "quality time" with one's wife or kids he will come back. Hopefully he won't be a tired dinosaur by then.

In the meantime, Apple is making much more money from iPods than from computers. So the iPod people are being treated with kids gloves, they can do no wrong.

Avie is tired and jealous. He liked Apple better before the iPod. Apple can now hire better people and he sees those brains knocking on the door. He used to be the smartest they could afford, now he sees the new whipper snappers. He probably has no management skills, so basically his own success fired him...he got fired by himself. The pathetic Wozniak phenomenom. Hey at least he is rich now sipping champagne in the south of France.

He also might be wanting to be his own boss. And a miserable one he will be, an order taker is an order taker.

Avie was making a hell of a lot more than $70k being the CTO of NeXT. I know I was working there at the time.

[mdriftmeyer]

Just from what you cited I tend to agree. Does anyone else think the timing of this is odd? If Mr. Tevanian's departure is rumored for the end of this month, does that somehow correspond with the release of 10.5?

Could it be done already, or is it Mr. Tevanian's involvement that's done? Just curious.

Hate to piss on any parades, but Carbon and Classic are what have slowed down the peformance of OS X, not the mach messaging which was tailormade for ObjC and Cocoa.

[lord patton]

Maybe he's going to Microsoft.

Yes, he's going to save Vista.

[BRLawyer]

Well, he is just another executive in the world; a good Armenian one, but not irreplaceable (as anyone else)...now I think Jobs should hire Ms. Fiorina AND Ms. Ellen "I Love Bankruptcy" Hancock for a joint CTO position, whaddya think? ;)

But one more thing...I couldn't help, sorry... :D

Does this mean that PowerBook G5s are FINALLY OUT???

[chrismear]

Here's an interesting read (again from Daring Fireball) on some of Tevanian's contributions -- both good and bad -- to OS X:

http://daringfireball.net/2003/07/the_good_the_bad_and_the_avie

[iMeowbot]

Hate to piss on any parades, but Carbon and Classic are what have slowed down the peformance of OS X, not the mach messaging which was tailormade for ObjC and Cocoa.
It is actually the performance of common Unix daemons, not Mac GUI software, that has been been criticized the most. Even so, I'm not convinced that Mach is the real problem, as OSF/1 (Tru64) has pretty much the same architecture and doesn't degrade so badly.

[rayz]

I read somewhere the other day that Mac sales still exceed iPod sales. Is this not true?

Fishes,
narco.

No. Over the past couple of quarters, Apple has made more from iPods than from Mac sales.

[Mr Skills]

NuKernel, remember, was designed from the outset as a kernel to power future PowerPC-based Mac operating systems; Mach wasn’t.

I don't even know what a kernel does, really, but this article was written before the whole Intel thing. If NuKernal was designed for PowerPC, isn't it possible that Mach was chosen for Intel compatibility?

[Queso]

Short the stock! Maybe. I dunno. I do remember when HP's Fionna (sp) left and the stock went up a couple of million dollars. Must feel good when your departure causes the company to increase in value 10%.

Yeah, but if you look at what HP stock has done since, it seems like those early worms were right. Up 50% over the past year.

[zcohan]

Isn't it a bit fishy that two of the top Apple lieutenants, Avie and Jon Rubenstein are leaving at virtually the same? Coincidence? Maybe.

[weg]

What other interests, I wonder--you're already at one of the top computer companies in the world...


Probably he wasn't interested in writing operating systems for the iPod *eg*

[BRLawyer]

Isn't it a bit fishy that two of the top Apple lieutenants, Avie and Jon Rubenstein are leaving at virtually the same? Coincidence? Maybe.

Yep, actually they are replacing Gates and Ballmer at MS, so that Vista may finally see the light of the day...:rolleyes:

[HiRez]

It's a big loss but maybe this will open the way for Cocoa-Python to replace Objective-C as the native language of OS X. :) Will Serlet be replacing him?

[fawlty]

Here's an interesting read (again from Daring Fireball) on some of Tevanian's contributions -- both good and bad -- to OS X:

http://daringfireball.net/2003/07/the_good_the_bad_and_the_avie

Very interesting read, thank you.

[BornAgainMac]

Maybe now they'll finally be able to ditch the frickin Mach microkernel piece of crap, that Nazi Tevanian has been adamant must be a part of the OS even though it's a performance pit, all because it's his PhD project. He's no visionary, just a reasonably smart hardass who happened to be at the right place at the right time and profited handsomely for it. Watch OSX improve by leaps and bounds as the old guard finally gets kicked out. A bunch of these NeXT alumni seriously have their heads up their collective arses.

Look everyone! This is Bill Gates on Macrumors.

[j_maddison]

Working for Steve Jobs must be a 24 hour job. The intensity, the drive, the angst. I think a guy like Avie, that less than 9 years ago was happy making his $ 70K and is now a multi millionaire, is putting his life in perspective. Perhaps 5 or 10 years from now, after he realizes how boring it is to spend "quality time" with one's wife or kids he will come back. Hopefully he won't be a tired dinosaur by then.

Boring to spend time with your wife and kids! What? ROFL. To steal a Covey quote "No one spends time on their death bed wishing they'd spent more time at the office".

If he has taken the time off to spend with his wife and kids, all the best to him. Probably the best decision any hard working man can make if he doesnt need the money anymore.

Sarcasm aside, I think thats an astute observation and one I hadnt considered.

Jason

[Compile 'em all]

In fact, the monolithical kernel structure is old and obsolete and the only OS that uses it is Linux....well, there are certain Linux distros that use microkernel too!...

As you see, most modern OS use microkernels, for various reasons. I invite you to take a look at the BeOS development, QNX development (there are even some nuclear plants that works in an environment based in QNX) and other "modern" Operating Systems (I mean modern by using new concepts of kernel, not the 80s monolithical kernel) and you will know what i'm talking about.

Regards. ^^

What the heck are you talking about?. Everybody knows that a monolithic
kernel beats the hell outta of microkernels preformance-wise. Besides, OS
X and NT both run a hybrid kernel (as another poster noted). I really can't
understand what do you mean by "modern" here. OS concepts evolve over
long periods of time and almost all the research in the area of Operating
systems has already been done.
Here take a look for yourself...modern Operating System my a**
All numbers are expressed in microseconds, lower is thus better.
http://static.flickr.com/42/119273502_d34443453a_o.png
http://static.flickr.com/44/119273500_b3814ff6a3_o.png
source (http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2436&p=8)

[mygoldens]

Let's see........

1. Steve sells stock
2. Ipod sales sufferring - Apple said sales will slump this year
3. Macbook Pro problems
4. Top operating system position vacant
5. Apple being sued in France and England

Is something going on here.........:eek:

[BRLawyer]

Let's see........

1. Steve sells stock
2. Ipod sales sufferring - Apple said sales will slump this year
3. Macbook Pro problems
4. Top operating system position vacant
5. Apple being sued in France and England

Is something going on here.........:eek:

Yeah, yeah, Apple is beleaguered...or doomed, whatever you prefer... :rolleyes:

I can add another item:

6. John Dvorak's sons started posting on MacRumors...

[BRLawyer]

What the heck are you talking about?. Everybody knows that a monolithic
kernel beats the hell outta of microkernels preformance-wise. Besides, OS
X and NT both run a hybrid kernel (as another poster noted). I really can't
understand what do you mean by "modern" here. OS concepts evolve over
long periods of time and almost all the research in the area of Operating
systems has already been done.
Here take a look for yourself...modern Operating System my a**
All numbers are expressed in microseconds, lower is thus better.
http://static.flickr.com/42/119273502_d34443453a_o.png
http://static.flickr.com/44/119273500_b3814ff6a3_o.png
source (http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2436&p=8)

So you guys are gonna repeat again and again the same ol' test made by Anandtech on these crappy MySQL/Server benchmarks?

Gimme a break, please...OS is MUCH more than cryptic database tests and babblings about the best kernel. Anandtech's test has been around for months, and all you can cite is that now?

As a mature OS, Linux is even worse than Windows...what a crappy, barebones and nerdish OS...if you have a problem with it, you don't even know where to start troubleshooting...and software base is paltry to say the least...go figure.

[bob_the_gorilla]

Let's see........

1. Steve sells stock
2. Ipod sales sufferring - Apple said sales will slump this year
3. Macbook Pro problems
4. Top operating system position vacant
5. Apple being sued in France and England

Is something going on here.........:eek:

I know you're just joking around, but anyway:

1. Tax reasons.
2. No compelling reason to upgrade. Still got nice high market share, and every day it stays up there the iPod/iTunes partnership becomes harder to topple.
3. Shock horror, Apple kit has noise problems! Seriously though, I'm sure it's irritating, but it's a minority problem - Mac users are just more vocal about, well, everything...
4. This may not be entirely bad, if you read that Daring Fireball article linked
5. Apple usually have half a dozen lawsuits on the go. This is the 3rd time the Beatles alone have been after them!

[blakespot]

http://daringfireball.net/2003/07/the_good_the_bad_and_the_avie



blakespot

[Counter]

Let's see........

1. Steve sells stock
2. Ipod sales sufferring - Apple said sales will slump this year
3. Macbook Pro problems
4. Top operating system position vacant
5. Apple being sued in France and England

Is something going on here.........:eek:

6. 'MacBook'
7. iPod Hifi

[peharri]

This is just another fact that backs up my contention that Apple is switching to Windows ;-) (*ducks* No, no, I keed, I keed!)

Seriously, this is sad but I don't think it's anything like a disaster for Apple. I suspect the amount of Mac OS X that owes its development to recent decisions by Tevanian is getting lesser and lesser. Most of the major decisions that made a different to how Mac OS X is today were either made in the mid eighties, or in the late nineties. What you see happening to Mac OS X today is stuff built upon that platform, rather than changes to that platform. Usability designers are having a bigger impact than kernel designers.

At the same time, the changes that are coming down the line don't really have much to do with the kind of low level stuff Tevanian is famous for. I've said already my belief that OS vendors, Microsoft included, are mostly concerned about managed code right now. I'm sure Tevanian could do a reasonable job implementing such things, but I suspect Apple wants people who are more familiar with that school of computer architecture and can do as good a job, if not better, with people like Chris Lattner.

Anyway, good luck Avie, you've done a wonderful job with Mac OS X, we couldn't have had this good an operating system without you.

[sam10685]

who's avie tevanian? oh well... better not affect the ease and useability of OSX. (or any other thing he worked on.)

[dernhelm]

I assume you mean MkLinux? This isn't really a distro, but an experimental version of Linux that tries to host a Linux implementation on the Mach microkernel.

Many Unix variants (e.g. Solaris) stick with a monolithic kernel, and the use of modules on top of this allows for many of the advantages of microkernels, without the IPC-related performance issues that dog most microkernels.

Even XNU and Windows XP don't have true microkernels, they are "hybrid" kernels. For example, XNU has BSD kernel code in the kernel address space in order to cut down on the microkernel-related latency. In fact, to the "outside world", XNU appears as a monolithic kernel, due to its BSD layer.

There are definitely performance problems with OS X and its kernel. The biggest problem appears to be the fact that kernel-level threads cannot be used by userlevel programs. Also, Mach's fine-grained locking mechanisms are hidden beneath the BSD "monolithic kernel" layer. You can see the impact that the XNU kernel has on performance vs Linux in the (now infamous) graph here:

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2436&p=6

If Apple are going to have a "BSD layer", that essentially hides Mach, then they should just go all the way and use the BSD kernel. This would result in much better performance.


Man I am sick of seeing that reference. So few people have done multiplatform multi-threaded programming that people see something from AnandTech and assume that it's true - because they just don't know any better.

Read this: http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2005/6/5/452

Anandtech goes through some lame BS explanation that fork() should be the same as threading -which is blatantly obviously wrong and shows how little they actually know about the topic. And yes, you can create "kernel" threads in OS/X - as a matter of fact the pthread interface (demanded by POSIX, hence the name) is a thinly veiled interface to the mach threads, and if needed, one can create mach threads directly from within the apple pthread "np" extensions.

I have not put any effort into figuring out why Anandtech's MySQL testing went so badly on OS/X and the G5 machines, but it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with threading layers on the microkernel architecture.

Please pass the word, I am really sick of seeing this.

[amateurmacfreak]

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
Who?
Now, there are certain times when you don't say what you're thinking in a thread, and instead you just read. ;) :cool:

[kirk26]

Does this mean we will get someone who can give us better "fun products" in the future than the crap crApple has pushed out in the past few years? I hope so.

[Marlor]

Man I am sick of seeing that reference. So few people have done multiplatform multi-threaded programming that people see something from AnandTech and assume that it's true - because they just don't know any better.

Read this: http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2005/6/5/452

Thanks for that, I wasn't aware of those problems in Anand's explanation. However, the results remain the same. OS X is much slower than Linux for these operations, and I don't doubt that this is partly related to the half-monolithic/half-microkernel Frankenstein's monster that is the XNU kernel and the additional IPC overhead involved with microkernels.

[Macnoviz]

http://images.apple.com/pr/images/ref_05tevanian.jpg

Kinda cute;)

[pizzach]

As a mature OS, Linux is even worse than Windows...what a crappy, barebones and nerdish OS...if you have a problem with it, you don't even know where to start troubleshooting...and software base is paltry to say the least...go figure.

You sound like a person who hasn't used linux before. :cool: I would prefer it any day to Windows. Er sorry, Winblows. :)

[iBookie]

Let's see........

1. Steve sells stock
2. Ipod sales sufferring - Apple said sales will slump this year
3. Macbook Pro problems
4. Top operating system position vacant
5. Apple being sued in France and England

Is something going on here.........:eek:

1. Apple switches to Intel
2. Windows Vista pushed back to 2007
3. Vista rumored to have 60% of code rewritten
4. MS fires a layer of Vista management
5. Avie "pursues other interests"

Is something going on here...... ;)

[Yvan256]

Well, I guess his leaving plays into the notion that Apple is moving from the Mac OS being based on Mach to being based on Windows.

Pretty wild.

Or Vista will be based on Mach. Think about that. :p

[d_and_n5000]

I read somewhere the other day that Mac sales still exceed iPod sales. Is this not true?

Fishes,
narco.

Of course Mac sales exceed iPod sales: You have everyone here buying Macs like groceries! A'course, you could argue the opposite, you have everyone buying iPods like cups of coffee - but you need computers before the iPods, otherwise there is no point to having the iPod;)

And too bad about Avie - but hey, everyone quits their job eventually,
sometimes against their will. Hey, maybe Steve has hatched a diabolical plot - have Avie quit and go to Microsoft, help rewrite that 60% of code in Vista - and make it all really bad coding, so everyone who uses it says "Screw this, I'm gonna go get an iMac!"

I've seen stranger stuff happening.

[peharri]

Or Vista will be based on Mach. Think about that. :p
Tevanian's joining Microsoft? Wow, now there's a rumour!

[baddaddy]

Maybe he is going to Microsoft to help them launch Vista sometime this decade. :rolleyes: LOL

[Compile 'em all]

So you guys are gonna repeat again and again the same ol' test made by Anandtech on these crappy MySQL/Server benchmarks?

Gimme a break, please...OS is MUCH more than cryptic database tests and babblings about the best kernel. Anandtech's test has been around for months, and all you can cite is that now?

As a mature OS, Linux is even worse than Windows...what a crappy, barebones and nerdish OS...if you have a problem with it, you don't even know where to start troubleshooting...and software base is paltry to say the least...go figure.

I am not comparing OSs, I was just replying to another fellow poster who
were refering to a microkernel as a modern kernel and bashing monolithic
kernels on no basis whatsoever. Whether you like it or not, it is a fact a
microkernel suffers a significant preformance hit because of IPC overhead.

[ImAlwaysRight]

Eh, not to interested in this story/rumor/whatever. Where's some more dirt on the 13" WIDESCREEN MACBOOK? Is it coming out next week or what? :confused: Reliable rumors on these new Intel Macs have been few and far between. Enquiring minds wanna know!

[BRLawyer]

You sound like a person who hasn't used linux before. :cool: I would prefer it any day to Windows. Er sorry, Winblows. :)

Actually I have, back in 2002/3 at the Uni in Sweden...trust me, Linux sucks big time...printing support sucks, software base is close to zero, GUI is inconsistent and the number of distros just adds to the confusion...apart from the fact that, if something happens, you have NO idea, as an ordinary user, where to start troubleshooting...

Sorry, but Linux is for geeks and sysadmins...not laymen and home users.

[baddaddy]

I wouldn't know a kernal if it bit me in the ass, I buy Mac's because they work. Here is the bottom line, if he is leaving then 10.5 is done or near done. Wouldn't that be an interesting April 1 surprise.

[Peace]

Both Rubenstein and Tevanian are associated PPC..

I'd be willing to bet Serlet takes Avie's spot and Apple brings in a whiz from Intel...If they haven't already.

[gkarris]

1. He really leaves to join the Microsoft Windows Vista Team.
2. He implements a bunch of OS X features in it (hence the delay to 2007).
3. MS releases Vista, and it looks almost like OS X.
4. Steve Jobs, now fed up, decides to retire.
5. Michael Dell buys Apple.
6. Macs, now having Intel Processors, now get the new Windows Vista instead.
7. Apple users revolt, waving bones and sticks around the new Apple 5th Ave. New York Store.

http://www.thinksecret.com/archives/0603midtown/nyc1.jpg

8. The sun then goes super nova and the solar system is destroyed...

Meanwhile, the Pioneer spacecraft lands on some distant planet with some level of technology. A person takes the disc that the spacecraft carries and puts it into their computer. A hidden file, which turns out to be the Microsoft Windows installer starts running...

[peharri]

Actually I have, back in 2002/3 at the Uni in Sweden...trust me, Linux sucks big time...printing support sucks, software base is close to zero, GUI is inconsistent and the number of distros just adds to the confusion...apart from the fact that, if something happens, you have NO idea, as an ordinary user, where to start troubleshooting...

Sorry, but Linux is for geeks and sysadmins...not laymen and home users.

Software base is zero? *snort*

The language you use doesn't help your case, BTW.

- the guy who mentioned Linux was refering to just that. There is no printing support in Linux, just as there's none in XNU. Nor is there a GUI, like XNU doesn't have a GUI.

- If you're talking about GNU/Linux, which isn't terribly relevent in a discussion about kernel performance, then there are several distros (as you mention), so which one are you refering to that you tried, that's worse than everything else, that's only suitable for "geeks and sysadmins"? And what relevence does it have to this discussion? Did someone propose switching out Quartz in favour of X11? I don't think so!

[peharri]

http://www.thinksecret.com/archives/0603midtown/nyc1.jpg

Presenting... the Thirtieth Anniversary Macintosh. The return of the Cube, now bigger and more powerful than ever before.

Good:

1024 Intel Core Duos 2GHz
1024Gb of RAM
40Gb HD
Combo drive
Radeon 9600 Graphics
$999,999

Better:

1024 Intel Core Duos 2.1Ghz
2048Gb of RAM
80Gb HD
Superdrive
Radeon 9600 Graphics
$1,499,999

Best

4096 Intel Core Duos 2.1GHz
4096Gb of RAM
80Gb HD
Superdrive
Intel Integrated Graphics (Shome mishtake, surely? - mod.)
$1,999,999

And, BTW, rumours of the new video iPod are true, they're coming out with a Thirtieth Anniversary model too, with a built in 60' screen...

[macFanDave]

No, seriously, I remember hearing about his impressive contributions to OS X at the beginning, but what has he added since then?

I'd like to know. From what I've seen, his departure is no big deal. If any of you know why I am wrong, please educate us.

[midiman]

Well, I guess his leaving plays into the notion that Apple is moving from the Mac OS being based on Mach to being based on Windows.

Pretty wild.

Wha???

OK, let's get this straight....Apple is switching to intel processors. They are not switching to windows. Why would they?

[Marlor]

Wha???

OK, let's get this straight....Apple is switching to intel processors. They are not switching to windows. Why would they?

John C. Dvorak wrote an article about how Apple might be switching to Windows. He was informed of this by a professor of psychology, who believed that the end of the Apple Switch campaign and the lack of Firewire on the new iPods meant that Apple must be adopting Windows as its new core.

Yes, it makes no sense, but then nothing Dvorak writes does.

[dr_lha]

Linux sucks big time...printing support sucks
Just to pick you up on this one comment, you do realise that that most modern Linux distros use the exact same printer subsystem (CUPS) as Mac OS X right?

[shawnce]

Maybe now they'll finally be able to ditch the frickin Mach microkernel piece of crap Ummm.. Mac OS X doesn't use a micro-kernel... it uses a monolithic kernel different then what Avie (et al) had planned for Mach.

[shawnce]

In fact, the monolithical kernel structure is old and obsolete and the only OS that uses it is Linux....well, there are certain Linux distros that use microkernel too!...

As you see, most modern OS use microkernels, for various reasons.

Under the traditional definition of a micro-kernel Mac OS X is not one, it is in fact a monolithic kernel.

[ingenious]

No. Over the past couple of quarters, Apple has made more from iPods than from Mac sales.

Business Week also reminds industry watchers that Apple has more cards in its stack than just the iPod – the Mac remains a 39 per cent share of the overall business it states, quoting Needham & Co analyst Charles Wolf. link (http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=14208)

Macs are still a huge part and will increase, from what most analysts are saying.

edit/edit2: fixed link

[shawnce]

Could it be done already, or is it Dr. Tevanian's involvement that's done? Just curious.

Apple is a HUGE company in regards to a single individual. Avie likely hasn't see or touched code in years and years. A person in his position spend most of his time in high-level meetings discussing trends, future goals and concepts 2+ years down the road and reviewing high-level product plans.

He is a guiding force in Apple but not involved in day to day development.

[shawnce]

Macs are still a huge part and will increase, from what most analysts are saying.

...and Mac OS X, iLife, Macintosh hardware, etc. receive far more R&D investment then the iPod does. Apple is milking the iPod as best it can but Mac wing is still its primary goal based on R&D spending.

[shawnce]

It is actually the performance of common Unix daemons, not Mac GUI software, that has been been criticized the most. Even so, I'm not convinced that Mach is the real problem, as OSF/1 (Tru64) has pretty much the same architecture and doesn't degrade so badly.

It really is an issue of what the pathways Apple decided to optimize in Mac OS X. ... of course some can be improved.

You can come up with all kinds of measures of system "performance" that show good and bad aspect that often directly reflect which pathways Apple decided to optimize (or make fast at the costs of slowing down others) in order to best serve the target markets of Mac OS X (primarily consumers and media manipulation). Often those slow pathways are not an issue and are easily be dwarfed by other real world tasks (ones that cannot be avoided).

For example Mac OS X traditionally has excellent latency profiles (low latency and consistently low) allowing things like real-time audio processing in live performance situations.

[_bnkr612]

8. The sun then goes super nova and the solar system is destroyed...

Meanwhile, the Pioneer spacecraft lands on some distant planet with some level of technology. A person takes the disc that the spacecraft carries and puts it into their computer. A hidden file, which turns out to be the Microsoft Windows installer starts running...

Now that's good humor.

[shawnce]

Thanks for that, I wasn't aware of those problems in Anand's explanation. However, the results remain the same. OS X is much slower than Linux for these operations, and I don't doubt that this is partly related to the half-monolithic/half-microkernel Frankenstein's monster that is the XNU kernel and the additional IPC overhead involved with microkernels.

One aspect of the test is that Mac OS X does honor full file system sync requests which the database appears to be using in the test that Anandtech did while the Linux doesn't honor those. This easily degrades performance in the Mac OS X test because the database is asking the OS to write out all data to disk (including flushing disk cache) when doing atomic commits (database waits for this IO to complete before finishing the atomic operation).

Also for most Mac OS X users they don't attempt to fork/exec a huge amount of processes (which the Anandtech test mostly focused on) instead Mac OS X is optimized more for threads (use of processes with many threads instead of many processes). Linux was initially designed with processes as the scheduleable unit and so that aspect was and is heavily optimize.

[ibwb]

Not to inject facts into the argument or anything, but according to Apple's 10-K iPod net sales in FY 2005 were 4.5 billion dollars and Mac net sales were 6.3 billion dollars. That's on 4.5 million Macs and 22.5 million iPods.

[mdriftmeyer]

What the heck are you talking about?. Everybody knows that a monolithic
kernel beats the hell outta of microkernels preformance-wise. Besides, OS
X and NT both run a hybrid kernel (as another poster noted). I really can't
understand what do you mean by "modern" here. OS concepts evolve over
long periods of time and almost all the research in the area of Operating
systems has already been done.
Here take a look for yourself...modern Operating System my a**
All numbers are expressed in microseconds, lower is thus better.
http://static.flickr.com/42/119273502_d34443453a_o.png
http://static.flickr.com/44/119273500_b3814ff6a3_o.png
source (http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2436&p=8)

You do realize that MySQL wasn't taking advantage of the native threading model for OS X, correct? From Kernel Programming.pdf


Mac OS X processes and POSIX threads (pthreads) are implemented on top of Mach tasks and threads, respectively. A thread is a point of control flow in a task. A task exists to provide resources for the threads it contains. This split is made to provide for parallelism and resource sharing.


Since MySQL for Mac was developed around the pthreads on top of the native kernel threads it's not surprising the performance would be degraded, but then again this issue is addressed @Apple.com. Thread priority dynamically changes in OS X. To raise priority:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303225

[mdriftmeyer]

Just to pick you up on this one comment, you do realise that that most modern Linux distros use the exact same printer subsystem (CUPS) as Mac OS X right?

Yes and you do realize CUPS on OS X is not setup for printing, by default. It works very easily, just as it does inside of Linux, but the interfaces are much cleaner and colorsync profiles for color printing are not available for Linux. The user can use either the printer driver provided by the manufacturer or a ppd inside of CUPS. The ipp:// features of CUPS aren't even touched upon by the printer driver manufacturers which goes into CUPS favor.

[mygoldens]

1. Apple switches to Intel
2. Windows Vista pushed back to 2007
3. Vista rumored to have 60% of code rewritten
4. MS fires a layer of Vista management
5. Avie "pursues other interests"

Is something going on here...... ;)

Ya, MS stands for Microscrap. I would just hate to see a technologicaly superior company go down for following the same footsteps as M$. Mickeysoft went after the buck, Apple is apparently going the same route, I know a company has to make a profit, but I hope they do not lose site of what we need. Technology, not M$ crap.:cool:

[ChrisA]

I
If Apple are going to have a "BSD layer", that essentially hides Mach, then they should just go all the way and use the BSD kernel. This would result in much better performance.

Today Intel dual core processors and they promise quad core chips in early 2007. Today Sun has 8-core chips with four-way hyperthreading per core. Intel will have something lke this in maybe three years? Then what? The trend will continue. I jokingly was talking about "kilo-cores" a while back but I can envisin 1024 hardware supported threads in the next decade and 32 in the Intel CPU world in a few years.

OK so assume we have 8-core or 16-core computers, now the micro kernels are looking like they are a lot better.

I have been waiting a long time for "NON-symetric multiprocessing" That is a computer with two or more CPU chips wher the chips are not the same. Say one is a specialized vector processing or one was a G5, Itanium, hardware java bytecode machine and one is an X86. Mach would be ideal for this. Just think how smooth Aple's next transition will be when they can phase in a new CPU using non-symetric multiprocessing. (BTW I was once a system programmer on a non-symetric machine. Th old CDC 6600 series had both 60-bit CPUs and 12-bit "PPUs" CPU = Central Processor, PPU = Periferal Processor the later computers would have 2 CPUs and 20 PPUs. Most of the operating system ran in the little 12-bit machines leaving the CPUs free to crunch numbers.)

Back to PCs .. Once you have 32-cores then you ask "Do all 32 cores need a floating point unit? No. Cores that run kernel threads don't. Compilres don't need FP either. So why not put that silicone to better use with eeither even more cores, less power used or more cache? The OS scheduler can look at some task atributes to see which core is "best" I'm sure it will happen

Apple's Max OS is looking to the future ten years out and is a better match to future hardware then to present hardware. Not a bad thing really.

[dizastor]

For those who dont know who he is, he's the guy steve thanks at the end of keynotes for "all of his hard work".

[iPie]

I don't know but it seems to me that everybody is always talking about software as the real advantage in the MS vs Apple war (yes, aesthetics too, but would YOU pay a 2xprice premium for a Max with XP?)

If the guy behind the software is leaving, looks like a problem to me...

[calculus]

i find it fascinating how many threads like this one end up being about how many angels can fit on the head of a pin.

To bring it back to the topic

1. Never heard of him (does that make me a bad person?)

2. The cult of individuals is always a bad thing - you have to give consideration to what happens next

[schatten]

As long as they still have Ive, I'll be happy though. Ive's my hero! :)

[Whistleway]

So nothing happened this tuesday... and nothing for mac 30yr aniversary ;( this shucks !!

[gkarris]

Ya, MS stands for Microscrap. I would just hate to see a technologicaly superior company go down for following the same footsteps as M$. Mickeysoft went after the buck, Apple is apparently going the same route, I know a company has to make a profit, but I hope they do not lose site of what we need. Technology, not M$ crap.:cool:

I think we need to change the name of this website from "MacRumors" to "MacHumors":)

[ChrisA]

"What the heck are you talking about?. Everybody knows that a monolithic kernel beats the hell outta of microkernels preformance-wise."

Those benchmarks measure things like "fork()". So how many forks per second are done on a desktop OS? I doubt the long term average is in to the double digits so if each one takes an extra 4000 microseconds it just doesn't matter.

What is starting to mater today and will matter more and more is how well the OS scales to a large number of CPUs.

[BRLawyer]

Software base is zero? *snort*

The language you use doesn't help your case, BTW.

- the guy who mentioned Linux was refering to just that. There is no printing support in Linux, just as there's none in XNU. Nor is there a GUI, like XNU doesn't have a GUI.

- If you're talking about GNU/Linux, which isn't terribly relevent in a discussion about kernel performance, then there are several distros (as you mention), so which one are you refering to that you tried, that's worse than everything else, that's only suitable for "geeks and sysadmins"? And what relevence does it have to this discussion? Did someone propose switching out Quartz in favour of X11? I don't think so!

I don't know what language you refer to, as I am offending no one...just putting forward my opinion as someone who used Linux for a while, and did NOT like it.

But it seems like some are proposing that Linux IS a better OS, which is FAR from true.

The mere fact that you feel like explaining that XNU is not GNU/Linux which is not who-knows-what-else just proves my point: Linux is NOT for normal users. And no, I don't even remember which distro I worked with at the Uni...you see? Too complex for normal people... :rolleyes:

[peharri]

But it seems like some are proposing that Linux IS a better OS, which is FAR from true.

No, they're not. They're explaining that, in their view, Linux is a better kernel than XNU. That is, a component of the GNU/Linux operating system (of the RedHat operating system, if you'd prefer) is better than a component of the Mac OS X operating system.

The mere fact that you feel like explaining that XNU is not GNU/Linux which is not who-knows-what-else just proves my point: Linux is NOT for normal users.
No, it doesn't. I don't think you understand what's under discussion here. It's a little like comparing an electric car to a gasoline car, and thinking the electric car is harder to drive because of the discussion about efficiency and generators and all that stuff.

When you talk about Linux not being any good, you're (BRLawyer) most likely talking about an entire operating system. This is largely because of confusion around the term "Linux". Linux is a program written originally by Linus Torvalds which is what's termed a kernel. It essentially mediates between applications and hardware, dividing up memory between them, ensuring they don't step on each other's toes, and providing basic features such as the ability for different programs to communicate. Its counterpart in Mac OS X is called XNU.

Some time early on in the history of Linux, people started shipping distributions. These distributions consisted of Linux and a set of tools called GNU. For reasons which are still controvertial, most distributions named the entire package "Linux".

When you were criticising "Linux", you actually were refering to the latter, which the rest of us call GNU/Linux (because it's GNU and Linux.) However, when the people you were addressing were talking about "Linux", they were talking about the former. So it was a bit like someone saying "XNU sucks/rocks!" and you saying "No it doesn't/yes it does, Mac OS X has a great UI!", except that in the Linux world, the equivalents of Mac OS X and XNU keep being refered to be the same word, so it gets confusing.

Is "Linux" too difficult for ordinary people? Well, the question's meaningless, and in any case the same answer, whatever it is, would apply to XNU. Neither Linux nor XNU come with anything that interacts with end users (well, I think both have a serial debugger, so you can hang a terminal off the serial port if you want, but I'm not sure that's adequate in this context.) The stuff that interacts with users runs over Linux or XNU, and very little of Linux or XNU ends up defining how that stuff works.

If Apple went crazy (they have no real reason to do this) and removed XNU from Mac OS X, and put in Linux, would the result be an unfriendly operating system? Well, truth be told, no.

Most applications would "just work" with nothing more than a recompile. Other than that, from an end user's perspective, the kernel change wouldn't make the slightest difference. It would actually be as "different" as OS X for Intel is from OS X for PPC. There'd be performance affects, obviously. But Linux wouldn't change the user interface - Linux (and XNU) is not where you implement user interfaces, those get built on top of the kernels.

The big problem is you've walked into a very old flame war. Linux is a so-called "monolithic" kernel. That means all the device drivers and other "programs" that provide low level services can all "see" and touch each other. This means they can communicate with one another very quickly, but it also means a bug in one can cause havok with the rest.

XNU is based on Mach, which was originally a "microkernel", but isn't much of one any more. In a microkernel, all of these subsystems are protected from one another, so, for example, the USB keyboard driver can't write over the memory of the disk driver. In XNU, these subsystems still have a degree of independence, but they all have some degree of freedom to interfere with the running of other subsystems. This was done to increase efficiency.

People have strong views on what constitutes the correct approach. Academia favours microkernels. Both Apple and Microsoft have come down on the side of "Hybrids", which is what I've described XNU as being - both NT and XNU have this kind of modularity. On the other hand, Linus Torvalds favours the monolithic approach, and, early on in Linux's history, was told by at least one academic (the author of Minix) that it was an awful, outdated, design.

So anyway, I hope that makes it a little more clear. When you talk about "Linux", you're not talking about the same thing that those who are posting benchmarks are talking about. You're comparing GNU/Linux to Mac OS X. They're comparing the Linux kernel to XNU.

I think it would be a rather pointless thing for Apple to remove XNU from Mac OS X and put in Linux, and I doubt they'd do it anyway, for licensing reasons. But if they did, your user experience wouldn't change. You'd still get Aqua and Quartz, not X11 and GTK. You'd still get the Finder and Dock, not GNOME or KDE. The OS would continue to "just work" on Apple hardware. It might be fractionally faster, or fractionally slower, that's open to debate. I doubt anyone will notice to be quite honest.

[BRLawyer]

Well, thanks anyway for your explanation; but still what we see in Anandtech's already old test is a clear mention to OS X versus Linux, thus giving us lotsa food for war...I understand the core of the debate, but just can't believe that a single test on MySQL is able to bring such bad feelings to some users here on MR...

[libertyforall]

Wow, it sure seems clear that both Rubenstein & Tevanian were unhappy with the transition to x86/Intel -- of course I could be missing something... but NeXT did the same thing -- went from 68k to x86 (NeXT even did some PowerPC testing at one point, but I'm unsure why PPC wasn't used, some ex-NeXTers can chime in here) and in the process sold their hardware division to Canon who went on to make Canon object.station computers (I had one). NeXT then became a software only company... WebObjects became their biggest cash cow, and Apple has largely neglected WO... :(

I would really like to know what companies Rubenstein and Tevanian are going to and the reasons for ther moves. Funny how this all coincides with a M$ shakeup and Vista delays... Lots of interesting things happening in the telecom/computing industries lately!

I wonder if this reporter got the wrong name? We already know Rubenstein is leaving (http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/12904672.htm) on March 31st.


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[MacMosher]

But then again, maybe some new blood will lead to radical new ideas that could turn out great for users.
This could be good... or bad

[shawnce]

Wow, it sure seems clear that both Rubenstein & Tevanian were unhappy with the transition to x86/Intel -- of course I could be missing something... I think you are... like how about some facts to backup your wild speculation that you call "clear". :confused:

(and how about keeping political statements out of this part of the forums, thanks)

[libertyforall]

MkLinux was not experimental, but a real environment -- I used it years ago, back on a 7100av -- ah, the good old days. MkLinux kicked Mac OS 8/9's but in speed at that time -- I also had fun running NEXTSTEP 3.3 & OpenStep for MACH on my Canon object.station 41... ;-)

NeXT/Apple merger was a brilliant move, the next brilliant move would be for Apple to buy Palm, me thinks -- an Apple Treo would be great.


I assume you mean MkLinux? This isn't really a distro, but an experimental version of Linux that tries to host a Linux implementation on the Mach microkernel.

Many Unix variants (e.g. Solaris) stick with a monolithic kernel, and the use of modules on top of this allows for many of the advantages of microkernels, without the IPC-related performance issues that dog most microkernels.

Even XNU and Windows XP don't have true microkernels, they are "hybrid" kernels. For example, XNU has BSD kernel code in the kernel address space in order to cut down on the microkernel-related latency. In fact, to the "outside world", XNU appears as a monolithic kernel, due to its BSD layer.

There are definitely performance problems with OS X and its kernel. The biggest problem appears to be the fact that kernel-level threads cannot be used by userlevel programs. Also, Mach's fine-grained locking mechanisms are hidden beneath the BSD "monolithic kernel" layer. You can see the impact that the XNU kernel has on performance vs Linux in the (now infamous) graph here:

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2436&p=6

If Apple are going to have a "BSD layer", that essentially hides Mach, then they should just go all the way and use the BSD kernel. This would result in much better performance.

[Goliath]

I'm not stupid and I know my way round a mac- can trouble shoot most problems I've come across but all this talk of Mach, kernels, Free BSD and what not just leaves me confused- guess my level of knowledge isn't that great with regards to the underlining progamming of OSX, Unix, Linux etc.

Not something I've ever had to have knowledge of- OSX just works for me! Sure I've had the odd 'Kernel panic'- just rebooted and was all fine!?

Maybe I'll have to investigate all this sh*t and what it means one day- til then I'll happily plod along knowing most problems I'll fix one way or another

[Nemesis]

Don't blame him. Working for both NeXT and Apple, under incredible pressure for so many years, will make anyone leave and look for something else.
And also, Avie has no more challenges -- he helped design most advanced operating system on Earth, and there's no similar opportunity rising on the market. He's just bored now and wants to enjoy his well deserved millions. There are young guys coming now, with all new crazy ideas, and he just wants to go. Smart move.
In fact, I envy him!
Well done, Avie! Stay away from technology, Steve Jobs and everyone else and enjoy your life!

[Prom1]

I bet Microsoft MacBu hired him for the upcoming co-Virtual PC OS based on Windows XP Pro SP2/Win2003 SP3 for cross over via Virtualization to OS X?!!

Or the upcoming tweak for Office 12 to OS X; just a guess/dream.

[iMeowbot]

One aspect of the test is that Mac OS X does honor full file system sync requests which the database appears to be using in the test that Anandtech did while the Linux doesn't honor those.
The F_FULLFSYNC thing is kind of amusing. VMS has that behavior by default (you have to jump through hoops to get around it), and sure enough, software ported over from Unix has a tendency to bog down there because Unix application programmers assume that syncing is cheap.

Even more amusing is that no one learns from the past. Here (http://lists.apple.com/archives/darwin-dev/2005/Feb/msg00095.html), it appears that Apple had to rediscover this problem independently and reinvent the solution decades after it was solved.

[Fukui]

As you see, most modern OS use microkernels, for various reasons. I invite you to take a look at the BeOS development, QNX development (there are even some nuclear plants that works in an environment based in QNX) and other "modern" Operating Systems (I mean modern by using new concepts of kernel, not the 80s monolithical kernel) and you will know what i'm talking about.

Regards. ^^
Not to mention windows NT kernel is also a micro-kernel architecture. Thats probably one of the reasons MS always wanted Tevenian in the first place... at least lets hope he doesn't go to MS after this!

[AidenShaw]

And also, Avie has no more challenges -- he helped design most advanced operating system on Earth, and there's no similar opportunity rising on the market.
Avie was at Sun ??


http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/

Advanced Solaris OS Features
A $500-million investment produced the most advanced operating system ever built, with more than 600 new features in Solaris 10,


Wow, that's three times the number of new features in OSX 10.4... ;)

[iMeowbot]

Avie was at Sun ??
And Microsoft too!
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/evaluation/features/mobility.mspx
"Windows XP Professional is the most advanced operating system ever created for laptops."

[mgauss]

What matters in the present and the momentum. These are very positive days for Apple. Really all the company has to do now is concentrate on cost reduction, as their existing hardware and software go down the price learning curve.

Really there is no reason why a MacBook Pro could not be $ 1000 in a year and $ 500 in two. And Apple will sell its ass off with a $ 500 MacBook Pro, it could easily sell 300 million laptops worldwide.

Many other laptops are now $ 499. They share many common hardware parts. And Mac OSX does not have Gates charging for that Windoze.

That is 150 billion in sales.

[Nemesis]

Avie was at Sun ??

Sun is aimless company. No vision.
Maybe not dead now, but in the years to come, for sure.

[sam-i-am]

With Avie gone, could we see the possiblity of a Linux based Mac OS in the future? Could get interesting.

Macrumors should give out a trophy for most insane comments. I nominate this post as the first winner!

OSX is already built on BSD which, like linux, is based on Unix.

Why in plu-perfect hell would they do all the work to switch it to linux? There would be 0 benefit. It doesn't make sense at all.

[BRLawyer]

Macrumors should give out a trophy for most insane comments. I nominate this post as the first winner!

OSX is already built on BSD which, like linux, is based on Unix.

Why in plu-perfect hell would they do all the work to switch it to linux? There would be 0 benefit. It doesn't make sense at all.

Oh yeah, the ol' Linux support parties...I really can't stand that system...to say 0 benefit is to be euphemistic; that junk belongs to PCs...and PCs only.

[Evangelion]

With Avie gone, could we see the possiblity of a Linux based Mac OS in the future? Could get interesting.

Huh? Head Designer of OS X retires == "Linux-based OS X! OMG!"

:confused:

[Evangelion]

In fact, the monolithical kernel structure is old and obsolete and the only OS that uses it is Linux

How exactly is it "obsolete" if it gives kick-ass performance and stability? Monolithic kernels are far from "obsolete".

well, there are certain Linux distros that use microkernel too!...

What on EARTH are you talking about here?

[Evangelion]

As a mature OS, Linux is even worse than Windows...what a crappy, barebones and nerdish OS...if you have a problem with it, you don't even know where to start troubleshooting...and software base is paltry to say the least...go figure.

I HONESTLY don't understand why Mac-users have to bash Linux. Seriously. Linux and OS X could co-exists BEAUTIFULLY with each other, but you guys seem to have determined that that must not happen. Linux is constantly mocked and flamed among Mac-users. Why? Did Linus Torvalds steal your girlfriend or something? Are you afraid that Linux is going to "steal your thunder"? In short: what is your problem?

As to your comparison of Windows and Linux... Well, let's just say that it's REALLY off-base. I use Linux, and I use Windows (at work). And I can say that troubleshooting Linux is A LOT easier than troubleshooting Windows is! And when something goes wrong with Linux, you can actually fix it. With Windows, it might not be so. And "barebones"?!?!? Most Linux-distros ship with metric assload of developer-tools, server-tools, apps, servers etc. etc. Linux is many things, but "barebones" it's not. Sure, you can run a minimal Linux-install, but you do that by your own choice, and not because you are forced to because Linux is "barebones".

And when I started using OS X alongside Linux, I found the software-base on OS X to be "paltry" when compared to Linux ;).

[Evangelion]

I don't know what language you refer to, as I am offending no one...just putting forward my opinion as someone who used Linux for a while, and did NOT like it.

I have used OS X for a while. And I like Linux more. I guess we have a disagreement here then? Or are you now saying that your personal opinion matters more than my personal opinion? that my opinion does not matter, whereas your opinion is the universal truth?

But it seems like some are proposing that Linux IS a better OS, which is FAR from true.

For some people (like me) it IS the better OS. For some other people OS X is the better OS. And some other people prefer Windows. Or are you now trying to tell that OS X is objectively and universalle "better"? It might be better FOR YOU. It's not better FOR ME.

Linux is NOT for normal users.

I have seen plenty of "normal users" using Linux. Linux CAN be a complex OS meant for complex tasks. And it can be a simple OS for "normal users". I would have zero problems recommending Linux to some grandmother.

My wife has used Linux+KDE. And yes, she complained about various things in it. She has also been using OS X. And guess what? She complains about various things in it as well! In fact, it seems to me that she complains MORE about OS X than about Linux/KDE.

[Evangelion]

Oh yeah, the ol' Linux support parties...I really can't stand that system...to say 0 benefit is to be euphemistic; that junk belongs to PCs...and PCs only.

You really seem to have some issues. I just can't understand this hostility Linux receives from Mac-users. You guys are ALMOST as bad as SGI-users!

[BRLawyer]

You really seem to have some issues. I just can't understand this hostility Linux receives from Mac-users. You guys are ALMOST as bad as SGI-users!

Sorry Evangelion, but to say that Linux should be "friends" with OS X means the same as expressing that Alienware is as "cool" as Macs.

I fully respect your opinion, but I just can't see Linux in many normal users' households in its current state. It IS a complex OS, it HAS software base problems, software installation is CUMBERSOME and troubleshooting is sketchy at best.

If Macs have problems with games, Linux is a disaster; besides, Linux has extremely limited offerings from major developers; and the complicated plethora of distros just sends one message to NORMAL consumers: Why the hell are there so many? What is the difference? I have no clue...

No, I am not talking about us crazy MacRumors posters...I am talking about people who are NOT computer-savvy at all; people who need a closed box that works. And in this sense, even Winblows is better than Linux.

I want an OS with FULL plug-n-play; I don't wanna mess with drivers, CUPS, configs etc...I wanna be able to fire up Apple Store online and buy everything I need in terms of software; and I don't wanna know if the last version of StarOffice is still compatible with the last version of MS Office.

For me, Linus, Yellow Dog et al. may stay in the catacombs of the computing world...or just bother Microsoft, for that matter...not Apple and OS X. Call me blunt, call me shallow, but for me Linux is just crude...and has been crude and heterogeneous for ages...it never consolidates, it never stabilizes...no, thanks.

[mojohanna]

I read somewhere the other day that Mac sales still exceed iPod sales. Is this not true?

Fishes,
narco.
I believe in $ volume but not unit volume. Makes sense the MBP are 5-10x the cost of an iPod

[mojohanna]

What matters in the present and the momentum. These are very positive days for Apple. Really all the company has to do now is concentrate on cost reduction, as their existing hardware and software go down the price learning curve.

Really there is no reason why a MacBook Pro could not be $ 1000 in a year and $ 500 in two. And Apple will sell its ass off with a $ 500 MacBook Pro, it could easily sell 300 million laptops worldwide.

Many other laptops are now $ 499. They share many common hardware parts. And Mac OSX does not have Gates charging for that Windoze.

That is 150 billion in sales.
This is a rediculous statment. A MBP will never cost $500-1000. Even if they would sell Billions of units, 0% of a billion is still ZERO. If apple sold MBP at $700-800 they would be in the tank in a heartbeat. Stock holders whould be certain that Steve has gone insane and do everything possible to remove him.
There is these things called cost of doing business (ie R&D, benefits, salaries cost to ship, utilities, rents, etc etc, that probably add significant cost to each of apple's products. Its not just a factor of the cost of the componenets that make up the machine.

Gross margin begets net margin. Net margin is one of the true indicators of the health of a company. If it is improving without the selling price of the products increasing, then a company is doing an excellent job at driving efficiencies througout the costing structure. And they are still producing a qulity product that can maintain the gross margins needed on the front end.

$500 MBP. Why would you spend $400 on a video iPod then????

[Evangelion]

Sorry Evangelion, but to say that Linux should be "friends" with OS X means the same as expressing that Alienware is as "cool" as Macs.

I'm saying that there are ZERO reason why Linux and OS X couldn't co-exist with each other. But you guys seem to want to make that as hard as possible.

I fully respect your opinion, but I just can't see Linux in many normal users' households in its current state.

You could say the same about OS X as well. For many cases Windows would be a better choice.

It IS a complex OS

So is OS X. The key is to hide that complexity. Linux can be complex to the user. And it can be very simple as well.

it HAS software base problems

Opinion, not a fact. When I started using OS X after using Linux for years, I found that OS X had "software base problems". All the apps that I used and loved in Linux were simply not there. And the apps that I did manage to find, usually cost money.

software installation is CUMBERSOME

How so? On my Linux (Kubuntu) I have basically two means of installing apps:

a) I launch a package-manager. I select the app I want in the package-manager and click "install". The app is installed

b) I have installed Klik on my machine. That means that I can install apps by (*drum roll*).... klicking on a link in a website. That's it.

How exactly are those methods "cumbersome"? Or are you whining because it's different from OS X, and everyhting that is not like OS X is "cumbersome"? Or, IOW, you are stating your subjective opinion as fact.

and troubleshooting is sketchy at best.

No it isn't. you are stating your personal opinion as fact. Is your personal opinion worth more than my personal opinion?

No, I am not talking about us crazy MacRumors posters...I am talking about people who are NOT computer-savvy at all; people who need a closed box that works. And in this sense, even Winblows is better than Linux.

Again: Opinion, not a fact. I HAVE seen lots and lots of "closed boxes" that run Linux, and they do it with zero issues. Windows would suck, since its full of spyware, viruses and other miscellianeous crap. OS X would be better, but it requires specific hardware to work. Linux has the advantage in that it would work on just about all hardware out there.

For me, Linus, Yellow Dog et al. may stay in the catacombs of the computing world...or just bother Microsoft, for that matter...not Apple and OS X. Call me blunt, call me shallow, but for me Linux is just crude...and has been crude and heterogeneous for ages...it never consolidates, it never stabilizes...no, thanks.

That's your choice. But just cut out the BS, OK? Dont like Linux? Fine, you have that choice. But please: don't spread bunch of personal opinions as facts. There really is no need for the hatred towards Linux. Linux did not steal your girlfriend, it did not scratch your car nor did it drink your beer. I honestly don't understand the hatred towards Linux. Success of Linux does NOT take anything away from Apple. Fact is that Linux could be Apple's and OS X's best friend in the computing-world. An OS that actually implements and follows open and documented standards? An OS that actually tries to work well with other OS'es? And still, all we ever hear from Mac-users is bitching and moaning, as far as Linux is concerned.

It just boggles the mind, really.

[rayz]

I believe in $ volume but not unit volume. Makes sense the MBP are 5-10x the cost of an iPod

Mmm .. can't find figures either way now .. :-(

[dernhelm]

Ummm.. Mac OS X doesn't use a micro-kernel... it uses a monolithic kernel different then what Avie (et al) had planned for Mach.

For those of you still confused about this, read this:
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Porting/Conceptual/PortingUnix/additionalfeatures/chapter_10_section_8.html

The XNU Kernel is a bit of a strange Mach + BSD4 hybrid. It is not microkernel, but does use Memory management, IO, and messaging from Mach (which is microkernel). Apple claims this gives them the best of both worlds, Anandtech claims it gives them the worst.

You decide... :D

[peharri]

Well, thanks anyway for your explanation; but still what we see in Anandtech's already old test is a clear mention to OS X versus Linux, thus giving us lotsa food for war...

Yeah, Anandtech's article - which, FWIW, I think is flawed on a technical level too (which doesn't mean I'm weighing in on XNU vs Linux) - does have a lazy use of language. Nonetheless, if one takes its tests at face value, its not actually comparing the parts of Mac OS X that make Mac OS X Mac OS X. It's comparing the kernels.

I understand the core of the debate, but just can't believe that a single test on MySQL is able to bring such bad feelings to some users here on MR...
It's a poor test that -

1. Gives apparent independent ammunition to the pro-Linux (or pro-monolithic) kernel camp, who are convinced Apple went in the wrong direction with XNU and Mach.

2. Is so poor it's easily demolished, and those on the defensive, such as those who dislike monolithic designs and/or those who like XNU have every reason to point out its flaws.

It would, right now, be silly for Apple to switch Mac OS X from XNU to Linux. While Linux may give them more efficiency, and a base compatable with the vast majority of PCs out there, and possibly a little more reliability, and more compatability with third party hardware, and better compatability with non-Mac OS X native applications (though most just need a recompile, so it's open to question how big a benefit that is), and support for more obscure networking and file system standards and the interoperability that comes with it, and less work - more ease relying upon third parties - when porting operating system components such as SAMBA, Apache, Kerberos, and PostgreSQL, there are slight differences that would require days of work for Apple to overcome in terms of building compatability layers.

For example, XNU uses the "Mach-O" executable format, whereas Linux uses ELF. To support this, Apple would essentially have to write a module for Linux that supports Mach-O binaries. Likewise, XNU implements system calls in a slightly different way to Linux. To support this, Apple would have to write a translation layer that picks up XNU calls, and calls the appropriate Linux system calls.

I don't see them doing it. We're talking about hundreds, possibly thousands, of dollars worth of programming time just to gain some fractional "efficiency" and reduced efforts involved in supporting third party tools and hardware. Why would they?

[Evangelion]

1. Gives apparent independent ammunition to the pro-Linux (or pro-monolithic) kernel camp, who are convinced Apple went in the wrong direction with XNU and Mach.

The test might be poor, but it's NOT poor because it shows OS X in bad light, while showing Linux in a good light. The reasons why it's a poor benchmark are in the technical details, and not in the fact that their results are not favourable to Apple. Had they done identical testing, but their results would have shown OS X beating Linux, would it then be a "good benchmark"? Nope, it would still be just as flawed as before.

That said, all this discussion about kernels in pointless. Linux has a good kernel, even though it's monolithic. I would MUCH rather have a good monolithic kernel than a bad microkernel. Saying that Linux sucks because it's monolithic just doesn't cut it. What would cut is telling the actual downsides of the kernel. And the fact that Linux is monolithic doesn't seem to be hurting anyone. It's still very stable and very portable.

It doesn't really matter what kind (monolithic, microkernel etc.) the kernel is. What matter is what the kernel can actually do. Should we be marvelling the superiority of some microkernel, even though it crashed every five minutes and had dismal performance? Should we call some monolithic kernel "obsolete", even though it was rock-solid, had excellent performance and was very portable? No and no. Theoretical merits of the kernel are irrelevant if the actual implementation sucks.

No, I'm not saying that OS X kernel is bad. Yes, it propably has it's share of problems in it. And so does Linux. And I'm pretty sure that those problems can be fixed.

[peharri]

The test might be poor, but it's NOT poor because it shows OS X in bad light,

You're misunderstanding me. I was responding to the question as to why the Anandtech article was causing a flame war. My two enumerated reasons weren't "Why the test is poor" but "Why such this poor test is causing a flamewar".

I pretty much agree with you, BTW.

[Evangelion]

You're misunderstanding me. I was responding to the question as to why the Anandtech article was causing a flame war. My two enumerated reasons weren't "Why the test is poor" but "Why such this poor test is causing a flamewar".

Ah, OK. Sorry for ranting :)

[dernhelm]

I don't see them doing it. We're talking about hundreds, possibly thousands, of dollars worth of programming time just to gain some fractional "efficiency" and reduced efforts involved in supporting third party tools and hardware. Why would they?

I hope you mean hundreds-of-thousands of dollars (more like millions) worth of programming time, not hundreds, possibly thousands. Hundreds of dollars is probably the donut budget for a week. Hmm - give up donuts this week and buy us binary level Linux compatibility? Yeah - you do that.

There's actually a lot of good reasons why Linux under the hood would be cool - none of them performance related. Mainly, porting of open source applications would be instantaeous - and OS/X would instantly become the most popular Linux distro.

As far as impact at Apple, OpenStep has been ported just about everywhere - including places without a Mach-based kernel. So most of Apple's software projects probably wouldn't notice the difference, since they are all built on top of OpenStep.

The main problem is that it would mean (most likely anyway) that current OS/X software would end up being "thunked" down into the Linux core, and would actually run slower until you received new binaries built directly on the new Linux core version of OS/X. And Apple cannot afford to have yet another code migration going on right now. So while it is cool to dream, don't hold your breath for this one.

[boncellis]

As long as they still have Ive, I'll be happy though. Ive's my hero! :)

Mine too, but Shhh! We'll be labeled forever if we say something like that!

[calculus]

Mine too, but Shhh! We'll be labeled forever if we say something like that!
Have to agree with you about Mr. Ive. For me he is the real Apple genius. All this technobabble above just turns me right off.

[Silencio]

This is non-news, period.

Avie busted his hump for 6 or so years turning OpenStep into Mac OS X and rapidly making it a mature product. He got bumped "up" to the position of Chief Propellerhead in 2003, where he was not involved in day-to-day decisions about Mac OS X at all. Since that time, his fellow ex-NeXTie, Bertrand Serlet, has held the reigns on software development at Apple and is pretty much continuing on the same course and philosophy as Tevanian has. Maybe their stance on file system metadata has softened a bit, which is a good thing...

Basically, this is like Fred Anderson leaving: the chain of succession in both cases has been completely seamless.

There are only two non-replaceable executives at Apple: Jonathan Ive and Steve Jobs.

[aegisdesign]

Thanks for that, I wasn't aware of those problems in Anand's explanation. However, the results remain the same. OS X is much slower than Linux for these operations, and I don't doubt that this is partly related to the half-monolithic/half-microkernel Frankenstein's monster that is the XNU kernel and the additional IPC overhead involved with microkernels.

Nope. It's due to the way MacOSX running on HFS+ does it's fsync() in MySQL. Linux and many other UNIX systems will flush data to the disk and then return immediately even if the disk hasn't actually written data. MacOSX waits for the disk to say it's actually written. If you've a badly written application like MySQL that frequently flushes data, you'll get bad performance.

If you want fast, use Linux and a big UPS power supply. If you want safe, use OSX. If you want both, use something other than MySQL.

This is pointed out by Apple's Dominic Giampaolo (of BeFS fame) in the MySQL docs at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/4.1/en/news-4-1-9.html however Anand paid no attention to this and went off on some completely misguided discussion about threads, forks and kernels. This myth has now propagated to stupid proportions.

[aegisdesign]

NeXT/Apple merger was a brilliant move, the next brilliant move would be for Apple to buy Palm, me thinks -- an Apple Treo would be great.

Palm don't make software anymore though. That was sold to Access last year. That would leave just the hardware and I'm sure Apple can do better.

[aegisdesign]

I would really like to know what companies Rubenstein and Tevanian are going to and the reasons for ther moves.

Rubenstein is supposedly retiring.

[BRLawyer]

Palm don't make software anymore though. That was sold to Access last year. That would leave just the hardware and I'm sure Apple can do better.

I don't which rumor is older: Apple buying Palm, the PowerBook G5, or the iPhone...

Palm is all but dead...let's forget it, please...

[mdriftmeyer]

I'm saying that there are ZERO reason why Linux and OS X couldn't co-exist with each other. But you guys seem to want to make that as hard as possible.



You could say the same about OS X as well. For many cases Windows would be a better choice.



So is OS X. The key is to hide that complexity. Linux can be complex to the user. And it can be very simple as well.



Opinion, not a fact. When I started using OS X after using Linux for years, I found that OS X had "software base problems". All the apps that I used and loved in Linux were simply not there. And the apps that I did manage to find, usually cost money.



How so? On my Linux (Kubuntu) I have basically two means of installing apps:

a) I launch a package-manager. I select the app I want in the package-manager and click "install". The app is installed

b) I have installed Klik on my machine. That means that I can install apps by (*drum roll*).... klicking on a link in a website. That's it.

How exactly are those methods "cumbersome"? Or are you whining because it's different from OS X, and everyhting that is not like OS X is "cumbersome"? Or, IOW, you are stating your subjective opinion as fact.



No it isn't. you are stating your personal opinion as fact. Is your personal opinion worth more than my personal opinion?



Again: Opinion, not a fact. I HAVE seen lots and lots of "closed boxes" that run Linux, and they do it with zero issues. Windows would suck, since its full of spyware, viruses and other miscellianeous crap. OS X would be better, but it requires specific hardware to work. Linux has the advantage in that it would work on just about all hardware out there.



That's your choice. But just cut out the BS, OK? Dont like Linux? Fine, you have that choice. But please: don't spread bunch of personal opinions as facts. There really is no need for the hatred towards Linux. Linux did not steal your girlfriend, it did not scratch your car nor did it drink your beer. I honestly don't understand the hatred towards Linux. Success of Linux does NOT take anything away from Apple. Fact is that Linux could be Apple's and OS X's best friend in the computing-world. An OS that actually implements and follows open and documented standards? An OS that actually tries to work well with other OS'es? And still, all we ever hear from Mac-users is bitching and moaning, as far as Linux is concerned.

It just boggles the mind, really.

Being an OS X user/dev and Linux dev on Debian for the past 5 years if Linux wants to cozy up with OS X then it better start helping out GNUstep. The fact neither KDE nor GNOME have ObjC/Cocoa/GNUstep bindings into their tools is a problem. Apple doesn't need to add GTK+/Qt support for their commercial OS to be a success. It has better frameworks in Cocoa. Granted I'm biased having worked at both NeXT and Apple but it is clear that these C++ toolkits have been playing catch up to Cocoa for ten years and still won't match the elegance due to the obvious differences between ObjC and C++.

Now that ObjC++ is available for GNUstep I still expect no one to use it but the talented GNUstep devs who will leverage the many useful and well-written C++ libraries/frameworks/toolkits under GPL.

[mdriftmeyer]

Nope. It's due to the way MacOSX running on HFS+ does it's fsync() in MySQL. Linux and many other UNIX systems will flush data to the disk and then return immediately even if the disk hasn't actually written data. MacOSX waits for the disk to say it's actually written. If you've a badly written application like MySQL that frequently flushes data, you'll get bad performance.

If you want fast, use Linux and a big UPS power supply. If you want safe, use OSX. If you want both, use something other than MySQL.

This is pointed out by Apple's Dominic Giampaolo (of BeFS fame) in the MySQL docs at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/4.1/en/news-4-1-9.html however Anand paid no attention to this and went off on some completely misguided discussion about threads, forks and kernels. This myth has now propagated to stupid proportions.

It's amazing we don't read about Oracle 10 or PostgreSQL 8 having these issues on OS X. Or Sybase or OpenbaseSQL for that matter.

[rayz]

It's amazing we don't read about Oracle 10 or PostgreSQL 8 having these issues on OS X. Or Sybase or OpenbaseSQL for that matter.

Not that amazing really. MySQL is probably the database that most folk will use on MacOSX because it's free.

I don't think there are that many serious Oracle10 deployments on OSX.

[rayz]

I don't which rumor is older: Apple buying Palm, the PowerBook G5, or the iPhone...

Palm is all but dead...let's forget it, please...

Didn't folk say the same thing about Apple when it was in a much worse position?

[Evangelion]

Being an OS X user/dev and Linux dev on Debian for the past 5 years if Linux wants to cozy up with OS X then it better start helping out GNUstep. The fact neither KDE nor GNOME have ObjC/Cocoa/GNUstep bindings into their tools is a problem.

Couldn't you just as well say that "Apple needs to start helping out GNOME/KDE"? Does Apple have support kdelibs and/or Qt in their tools for example? How about GTK+? No? Then why should Linux-folks pick up the slack, whereas Apple doesn't have to? "Because Apple-toolkits are better!". Well, I know bunch of KDE-developers that would disagree with you ;).

I'm not talking about sharing code or something here. I'm talking about co-existing in a way where one party does not actively seek to destroy the other.

Apple doesn't need to add GTK+/Qt support for their commercial OS to be a success.

And Linux-folks don't have to add support for Cocoa or others in order to be a success.

[peharri]

Not that amazing really. MySQL is probably the database that most folk will use on MacOSX because it's free.
OSX.
PostgreSQL is also free. It's generally considered superior to MySQL except in not being as easy to set up.

[janstett]

As you see, most modern OS use microkernels, for various reasons. I invite you to take a look at the BeOS development, QNX development (there are even some nuclear plants that works in an environment based in QNX) and other "modern" Operating Systems (I mean modern by using new concepts of kernel, not the 80s monolithical kernel) and you will know what i'm talking about.

Sometimes the theoretically superior idea (microkernel) ends up being inferior in real world performance.

Microsoft figured this out several operating systems ago. Dave Cutler designed NT to be a portable microkernel (remember, it has run on i386, Intel N 10, PowerPC, DEC Alpha, Mips, Itanium, and x64 platforms over its life). For Windows 2000, they bled pieces of the kernel and user space together to reduce these context switches. Precisely because the microkernel is a great idea, but the reality is that the OS then has to make a LOT of context switches in and out of the kernel to do every single little task. XP today benefits from this hybrid approach.

[janstett]

What other interests, I wonder--you're already at one of the top computer companies in the world...

This seems strange to me, I suspect certain code words like "mutual decision" and "amicable" might be involved.

Just a feeling.

I dunno, how exciting is it to be an Operating System guru in 2006? What new has really been done? It's a mature technological area now, with only small tweaks possible. The OS's now are pretty stable. Windows doesn't change much. Unix doesn't change much. Most embedded environments use some permutation of Unix.

I mean, you've got Kernighan and Pike from Bell Labs, who invented Unix. They finished their careers as researchers.

Take the early Microsoft guys -- Gordon Letwin did early Windows and OS/2 1.x, I haven't heard a peep out of him since he was forced out by Dave Cutler's arrival at Microsoft.

Dave Cutler designed VAX/VMS and then went to Microsoft to create NT. He left, and I haven't heard anything since.

Then take our older Mac OS gurus, the guy who left to start Be, etc.

There's not much exciting to do, being an OS guru, anymore. It's kind of like trying to invent a new kind of internal combustion engine -- you can improve small things but the design is fixed now.

[naturetrance]

This guy is cashing out (check AAPL insider stock sales) while Apple is on top. Smart guy.

I'm sure there are other reasons for his leaving though.