| 82 | | The Hurd is the GNU project's replacement for the Unix kernel. |
| 83 | | |
| 84 | | The Hurd is firstly a collection of protocols formalizing how different components may interact. The protocols are designed to reduce the mutual trust requirements of the actors thereby permitting a more extensible system. These include interface definitions to manipulate files and directories and to resolve path names. This allows any process to implement a file system. The only requirement is that it have access to its backing store and that the principal that started it own the file system node to which it connects. |
| 85 | | |
| 86 | | The Hurd is also a set of servers that implement these protocols. They include file systems, network protocols and authentication. The servers run on top of the Mach microkernel and use Mach's IPC mechanism to transfer information. |
| 87 | | |
| 88 | | |
| 89 | | Links: |
| 90 | | |
| 91 | | http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd.html |
| | 82 | Hurd having been in development for so long, but still not production-ready; and with Linux as a mature free kernel being firmly established as the de-facto standard kernel for the GNU system -- people often wonder: why haven't developers abandoned the Hurd long ago? |
| | 83 | |
| | 84 | Without going into technical details, this short talk tries to explain the main idea behind the Hurd architecture, which sets it apart from other systems. |
| | 85 | |
| | 86 | Links: |
| | 87 | |
| | 88 | http://hurd.gnu.org |
