Singularity – Microsoft’s OS Built From Scratch
Published by: Codrut Nistor, in News
March5th2008
Can you believe Microsoft has built an entire OS from scratch? While this is true, we won't get to use it on our computers anytime soon, because Singularity is a Microsoft Research project started back in 2003, with the purpose of creating a highly-dependable system in which the applications, device drivers, and even the kernel itself, are written using managed code. Yesterday, Microsoft has finally shown this OS to the entire world...
After almost 5 years of hard work, Microsoft has decided to make this prototype available for free to the academic and research communities, with the hope of helping in developing new kinds of computer architectures. The general director of Microsoft Research, Rick Rashid, said that Singularity is "a new system built from the ground up, with the specific goal of being more reliable."
Revealed at Tuesday's TechFest, Singularity is available for download on Microsoft's CodePlex site, as a Research Development Kit, or shortly, RDK. The package includes source code, build tools, test suites, design notes and other materials useful for those that feel up to the task of playing with a brand new system, written entirely in C#.
If you think you're up to the task...please, go ahead and grab Singularity, but once you get into it, remember to get back here and share your impressions with the rest of us, all right? Good luck!
After almost 5 years of hard work, Microsoft has decided to make this prototype available for free to the academic and research communities, with the hope of helping in developing new kinds of computer architectures. The general director of Microsoft Research, Rick Rashid, said that Singularity is "a new system built from the ground up, with the specific goal of being more reliable."
Revealed at Tuesday's TechFest, Singularity is available for download on Microsoft's CodePlex site, as a Research Development Kit, or shortly, RDK. The package includes source code, build tools, test suites, design notes and other materials useful for those that feel up to the task of playing with a brand new system, written entirely in C#.
If you think you're up to the task...please, go ahead and grab Singularity, but once you get into it, remember to get back here and share your impressions with the rest of us, all right? Good luck!
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11 Comments on Singularity – Microsoft’s OS Built From Scratch
On 03/09/2008 at 7:12 am Chris said:
My first thought after reading it's written in managed code - wow it must be slow. .NET is great and flexible and easy to program in, and although it's fast it's definitely not as fast as pure C++ or assembly.
On 03/09/2008 at 6:49 pm Josh Olson said:
A lot of the code base is C++ and assembly. Educate yourself before you post.
On 03/10/2008 at 11:10 am JC said:
Hey Josh Olson:
Educate yourself dumbass.
"with a brand new system, written entirely in C#"
On 03/10/2008 at 7:49 pm David said:
One of the most impressive aspects of the RDK is the compile tools included, which can compile C# directly to highly optimized machine code. One gets all the development advantages of high level, manage code, but the speed and low overhead of working in C.
While the SIPs and avoidance of context switching for a microkernel are pretty cool, not to mention the focus on async messages and all the other architecture, performance and security features, I have to say the compiler is the most impressive part of the release, not the kernel. These kinds of tools could, unless developed soon for Java and other high level languages, give C# an easy and decisive victory, as it now can run as fast a straight C, but be written as fast as any other high level options.
On 03/10/2008 at 9:13 pm Brian said:
I'll stick with Linux thanks. :)
On 03/11/2008 at 5:31 am GD said:
Linux is where it's at and where it's going...and in Brian's case:where it's always been. If you havn't tried the latest release of Ubuntu, then you may very well be uninformed.
IMO: C# is not the answer, open source is. The only people who argue with this are the ones that profit from closed source software monopolies OR those of ignorance.
PS. Anyone remember Apples' Darwin OS? This made it possible to port their OS to 32 bit machines so even MacIntards can run PCs too.
On 03/13/2008 at 1:46 am Billy said:
Linux might be great for those of us with the know-how, but it will probably never be fully mainstream. It does require some time and knowledge to make it do what you want, two things that the majority of computer users aren't interested in investing. They want to sit down at the machine, get done what they need to do, then get up and walk away. Not hunt up, install, and tweak plugins and such.
I've tried to 'convert' most of my friends, but most of them simply don't want to mess with it, because mac OS or Win-based machines do what they want from the moment they turn them on.
On 03/16/2008 at 8:15 am Mike said:
David,
As is generally true with Microsoft fan-boys, your analysis is lacking. Most companies don't want to spend their cash on developing applications that are locked into a single platform, as your solution is. It doesn't matter how fast it is if it doesn't run!
On 03/27/2008 at 2:44 am millard said:
How is C# single platform? Heard of Mono Mike?
On 03/27/2008 at 6:56 am shawn said:
Ubuntu blows. I've tried it a couple times and to frustrating for the average guy. For a GUI interface I couldn't do half the things I wanted w/o learning the command line tools.
Slows as windows, resource hog and forget with the broadcom wireless cards, the wrapper option sucks.
I'll stick with XP if I need a good GUI interface and expect more from great deveopers and web interfaces and tools...
On 03/27/2008 at 12:36 pm Windows vs Linux said:
Ah, the Internet never disappoints: I just knew that the comments were going to turn into a "Linux vs Windows" conversation. Thanks, Linux and Microsoft fan-boys.
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