Josh Clulow, Patrick Mooney, and Steve Klabnik join the hosts to discuss Helios, the OS that runs on the Oxide Rack. They touch on topics such as illumos, distros, Rust Tier 2 support, and Bryan's sleeper bug from 1991. They also explore the challenges of software distribution, developing software for Windows with Rust, memory usage, upstreaming code, and exploring computer architecture. The chapter descriptions include discussions on books, the Unix wars, the Helios sled, and database options.
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Quick takeaways
Helios is designed for specific Oxide hardware but can be used on workstations, manufacturing stations, and servers, providing a consistent experience.
Helios leverages IPS for package management, ensuring a consistent experience across different deployments.
Upstreaming code is a key focus in the development of Helios, ensuring software updates are smooth and easy.
Helios is an open-source project, but its primary purpose is to run on specific Oxide hardware and meet the needs of the Oxide product system.
Deep dives
Summary Paragraph 1
Helios is an implementation detail of the Oxide rack and is not meant for general users. It is similar to Omnios LTS and leverages IPS (Image Packaging System) for package management. Helios focuses on running on commodity servers and machines rather than Oxide hardware. It can be used on workstations, manufacturing stations, and servers, providing a consistent experience across different contexts. The IPS packaging system in Helios eliminates the need for post-install scripts and provides a declarative approach to package management.
Summary Paragraph 2
IPS (Image Packaging System) is the packaging system used by Helios. It originated from the OpenSolaris era and is a late entrant to the packaging world compared to systems like RPM and dpkg. IPS replaces traditional post-install scripts with declarative actions and aims to simplify packaging and installation processes. Helios leverages IPS for package management, ensuring a consistent experience across different deployments.
Summary Paragraph 3
Upstreaming code is a key focus in the development of Helios. By upstreaming code, the project ensures that changes and improvements made to Helios are contributed back to the Alumos community. This approach has been learned from the past experience of not upstreaming code in different projects, which resulted in accumulating technical debt. Helios aims to stay up to date with the latest Alumos releases, ensuring that software updates are smooth and easy.
Summary Paragraph 4
Helios is not intended as a general-purpose Unix distribution. While it has been open-sourced to allow others to replicate the Oxide environment, its primary purpose is to run on specific Oxide hardware and meet the needs of the Oxide product system. Helios is designed for use in manufacturing stations, workstations, and on specialized hardware, providing a consistent and reliable platform for these specific use cases.
The importance of making informed decisions when choosing software
The podcast episode emphasizes the importance of making well-informed decisions when choosing software tools or components to integrate into a project. The speaker highlights the need to consider various dimensions and values that align with one's own goals. They discuss how their team evaluated different operating systems and hypervisors, ultimately choosing A Lumos based on multiple factors such as its overlap with their values, technical properties, and the ability to contribute to upstream. The speaker also mentions the significance of documenting and explaining the rationale behind these decisions to address potential criticisms.
The challenges of evolving and maintaining an operating system
The podcast episode delves into the challenges faced in evolving and maintaining an operating system. The speaker refers to specific issues encountered with the Adaptive Replacement Cache (ARC) and tunable values in A Lumos. They highlight the importance of revisiting outdated thresholds and dimensions when scaling systems and how sometimes assumptions made in the past need reevaluation. The speaker also emphasizes the need for clear communication, documentation, and responsiveness to feedback in order to facilitate improvements and maintain quality.
The benefits of open-source projects and community collaboration
The podcast episode discusses the positive aspects of open-source projects and the advantages of community collaboration. The speaker highlights the successful integration of Cockroach and ClickHouse DB to A Lumos, along with efforts to optimize Rust and Golang support. They note the value of shared responsibility and the ability to contribute to upstream components, leading to a stronger and more empowering developer experience. The podcast also mentions the availability of comprehensive documentation and books that provide valuable resources for users and contributors of A Lumos.
Bryan and Adam are joined by Oxide colleagues Josh Clulow, Patrick Mooney, and Steve Klabnik to discuss Helios, the operating system that runs on the Oxide Rack. Helios is a distro of illumos (derived from OpenSolaris, derived from Solaris, etc.). What's a distro? Why did Oxide choose illumos? Plenty of cross-generational appeal in this episode!
Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:
If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!
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