Singularity Is Now Available!

[jsedlak]

Microsoft has released its long shrouded Research OS, Singularity on CodePlex. Free to download and use for Academic use.

http://www.codeplex.com/singul...s.aspx?ReleaseId=11305

I am building it now, and it is making my quad cores go insane in CPU usage!

 

[dnuggett]

Let us know what you think of it.... What are the practical uses for an enthusiast?

 

[jsedlak]

Nothing as of now since it is primarily a research Operating System.

Here is an introduction to it...
http://research.microsoft.com/...nkingSoftwareStack.pdf

But if you are a tech person and can program, it is definately worth checking out. Gives you an eye into the research department at Microsoft and what Windows could be like down the road (in terms of core design, not front-end UI).

 

[VinDSL]

Thanks for the heads-up, jsedlak!

I love CodePlex!

Between them and Channel 9 I can spend hours over there...

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: dnuggett
Let us know what you think of it.... What are the practical uses for an enthusiast?

If you like this kind of stuff...

YOU MIGHT FIND THIS INTERESTING

 

[flexy]

there's one problem. It says "Microsoft" on the package.

 

[stash]

I wonder why they are still using CLR 1.1?

 

[jsedlak]

I believe they haven't switched to .NET 2.0 because this is only version one and it is quite the old project. Sort of a go with what works sort of thing, ya know?

 

[VinDSL]

I dunno...

Singularity

Watching Channel 9 as much as I do...

It seems like Microsoft stuck a handful of nerds on this project - oddballs that couldn't possibly dovetail with any other projects - and said...

"Hey, we want to see what a dependable OS would look like. You're useless to us, but dangerous in the open marketplace, 'cause you know too much. So, rather than sitting around the office bugging everyone, how about making yourself useful and spinning your wheels on this?"

 

[jsedlak]

You have to remember that Singularity isn't meant to be a quick project, it is a slow research project meant to try a new way of operating systems. As in most cases in Microsoft Research, they aren't meant to be real projects for many years, if they even get that far.

The Research division as I understand it is more a case of "Let's see what we can do, and if it doesn't work, not a big deal. If it does work, we might be able to turn this into a product."


Anyways, I am attempting to compile the World distro after getting Tiny to run fine in VPC07.