Google Working to Remove MINIX-Based Management Engine from Intel Platforms | Hacker News Reader

Google Working to Remove MINIX-Based Management Engine from Intel Platforms

tomshardware.com

46 pointsrbanffy17 comments

>Due to MINIX’s presence on every Intel system, the barebones Linux OS is the most widely deployed operating system in the world.

Yeeeowch. That's a pretty egregious error.

Came here to post this. I guess the author never read the Torvalds-Tanenbaum debate :).

Agreed. It made me stop reading after the first paragraph.

I see no error. Just a very willful self congratulation.

Minix is not a Linux OS.

For context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanenbaum%E2%80%93Torvalds_deb...

They should have said "Unix-like" OS, as Minix is definitely distinct from Linux.

And also it is GNU/Linux

Looking at https://raptorcs.com/TALOSII/, the main cost to getting a POWER9 CPU isn't the CPU itself, it's paying a relatively small mainboard design company that needs to recoup their (presumably substantial) engineering costs.

Given Google's size, I wonder:

1) If they could reasonably design their own mainboards for POWER9

2) If they could create a market for POWER9 CPUs among enthusiasts and the security minded (Google's apparent motivation for lobotomizing Intel ME)

3) If the POWER9 CPU is a reasonable option for their workloads

4) If other architectures are a non-starter from a homogeneity standpoint (e.g. everything else runs Intel, and software compatibility is king).

EDIT: Formatting

Google and Rackspace developed a POWER9 server https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2016/10/introducing-Zai... but I don't think it's available to others.

If that motherboard could fit in a reasonable desktop tower chassis, it'd be cool to be able to piggyback on Google's and Rackspace's work.

BTW, I assume both companies would somehow benefit from having machines like those on engineer's desks - it's certainly convenient to do local development on the platform you are deploying to.

This doesn't seem to contain anything new from the previous stories, one of which was even submitted by you :/

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15641592

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15634014

This piece focuses on Google's attempt at removing ME 11 code and replace it with something they are more comfortable with. The others drove discussion towards numbers, security issues and a third one focused on the license (BSD) and its effects.

Why is tomshardware calling MINIX a "barebones Linux OS"?

Linux Is Not UniX.

Neither is MINIX.

In the end, though, they're all Unixy enough.

what was that video about?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com