93 min listen
Put the OS back in OSDI
ratings:
Length:
73 minutes
Released:
Sep 6, 2021
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: September 6th, 2021Put the OS back in OSDIWe’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it’s not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for September 6th, 2021.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers on September 6th included Dan Cross, Josh Clulow, Tom Lyon, Simeon Miteff, Daniel Maslowski, Matt Campbell and Moritz. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:
Adam’s tweets on recording Twitter Spaces.
Tweet on recovering a recording!
[@4:57](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=297) Timothy Roscoe’s Keynote
Screenshots teasing his slides
Conf video
Complicated relationship with academia and industry
[@8:09](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=489) Adam’s MS graphics experience
Bryan’s USENIX 2016 keynote ~1hr: A Wardrobe for the Emperor – Stitching Practical Bias into Systems Software Research Conferences as the publishing vector for CS research
[@13:47](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=827) What a modern OS does > … accreted and not designed. > They were not designed, they congealed.
[@17:10](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=1030) Rob Pike’s 2000 “Systems Software Research is Irrelevant” paperThe value of incremental improvements
[@21:47](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=1307) Building on extant working components and interfaces
Opaque, proprietary hardware
AMD Platform Security Processor > Artifacts of the OS implementation tend to have outsized impact > on overall system performance
[@26:27](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=1587) Performance is not the only axis of a system Security, malleability, convenience, reliability
[@31:12](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=1872) Specialization
HarmonyOS, Fuchsia
Different chips performing different tasks
Firmware everywhere
Intel Optane
Intel 8051
[@37:02](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=2222) Open hardware and firmware ARM Cortex-M0 > That’s why we land at incrementalism, we ossify at some boundary. > And it’s very hard to change things on either side without moving in lockstep.
Tom: The PC architecture was a great thing, but now the OS vendors have abdicated any knowledge of the hardware. Give us UEFI and we don’t care what happens beneath that.Should ARM have UEFI? (or something like it)
[@45:29](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=2729) Developing hardware is still challenging, but has never been easier than today (especially low-speed)
Tom’s tweet about parallels with homebrew computing in the 70’s
Precursor and Xous
[@50:58](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=3058) Where will new systems development fit in with our existing (working) systems?
Low-speed is an opportunity area
RISC-V for peripherals
[@56:37](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=3397) Backwards compatibility seems to be more important than marginal gains:
Shingled magnetic recording offered <25% density gain at the cost of compatibility
Optane: gains didn’t justify the cost
Smart NICs only made sense in hyperscale server fleets > Josh: If you’re going to change the programming model, you have to blow the doors off on at least one axis
[@1:00:45] Moving management plane to a NIC.
AWS Nitro implements this with a series of PCIe offload cards.
[@1:01:22](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=3682) Abstraction boundaries not designed for the current circumstances
Coordination problems between vendors
Vestigial components
AMI, AST2500
Arcane boot processes and shortcuts available for cloud compute xhyve
[@1:08:57](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=4137) Removing things is so hard
Things change given enough time
Graham Lee’s essay on legacy and software dependencies …and in the end will be the command line
If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next Twitter space will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time; stay tuned to our Twitter feeds for details
Adam’s tweets on recording Twitter Spaces.
Tweet on recovering a recording!
[@4:57](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=297) Timothy Roscoe’s Keynote
Screenshots teasing his slides
Conf video
Complicated relationship with academia and industry
[@8:09](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=489) Adam’s MS graphics experience
Bryan’s USENIX 2016 keynote ~1hr: A Wardrobe for the Emperor – Stitching Practical Bias into Systems Software Research Conferences as the publishing vector for CS research
[@13:47](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=827) What a modern OS does > … accreted and not designed. > They were not designed, they congealed.
[@17:10](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=1030) Rob Pike’s 2000 “Systems Software Research is Irrelevant” paperThe value of incremental improvements
[@21:47](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=1307) Building on extant working components and interfaces
Opaque, proprietary hardware
AMD Platform Security Processor > Artifacts of the OS implementation tend to have outsized impact > on overall system performance
[@26:27](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=1587) Performance is not the only axis of a system Security, malleability, convenience, reliability
[@31:12](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=1872) Specialization
HarmonyOS, Fuchsia
Different chips performing different tasks
Firmware everywhere
Intel Optane
Intel 8051
[@37:02](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=2222) Open hardware and firmware ARM Cortex-M0 > That’s why we land at incrementalism, we ossify at some boundary. > And it’s very hard to change things on either side without moving in lockstep.
Tom: The PC architecture was a great thing, but now the OS vendors have abdicated any knowledge of the hardware. Give us UEFI and we don’t care what happens beneath that.Should ARM have UEFI? (or something like it)
[@45:29](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=2729) Developing hardware is still challenging, but has never been easier than today (especially low-speed)
Tom’s tweet about parallels with homebrew computing in the 70’s
Precursor and Xous
[@50:58](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=3058) Where will new systems development fit in with our existing (working) systems?
Low-speed is an opportunity area
RISC-V for peripherals
[@56:37](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=3397) Backwards compatibility seems to be more important than marginal gains:
Shingled magnetic recording offered <25% density gain at the cost of compatibility
Optane: gains didn’t justify the cost
Smart NICs only made sense in hyperscale server fleets > Josh: If you’re going to change the programming model, you have to blow the doors off on at least one axis
[@1:00:45] Moving management plane to a NIC.
AWS Nitro implements this with a series of PCIe offload cards.
[@1:01:22](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=3682) Abstraction boundaries not designed for the current circumstances
Coordination problems between vendors
Vestigial components
AMI, AST2500
Arcane boot processes and shortcuts available for cloud compute xhyve
[@1:08:57](https://youtu.be/PVJfqjJJCkg?t=4137) Removing things is so hard
Things change given enough time
Graham Lee’s essay on legacy and software dependencies …and in the end will be the command line
If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next Twitter space will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time; stay tuned to our Twitter feeds for details
Released:
Sep 6, 2021
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
A Requiem for SPARC with Tom Lyon by Oxide and Friends