IIRC Go was originally designed to be a systems programming language and can technically be used to that effect, even if (relative to Rust) there are few projects using it in that capacity.
ETHZ had their Oberon workstations servicing the complete CS department for around 10 years.
Midori powered part of Bing during its high time.
Don't mix technology capabilities with politics and budgeting.
What I just wrote is not a slam-dunk argument against OSes dependent on GC, but it is at least evidence against them -- even if decisions on which OS to use are usually political decisions.
Or Astrobe selling Oberon boards for around 15 years now.
Or we can just keeping using UNIX clones, no need to waste money on improving the status quo.
And yet despite their early popularity they died of.
> ETHZ had their Oberon workstations servicing the complete CS department for around 10 years.
I don't consider something running in a CS department as a success. CS department run all kinds of wacky shit. That's basically why they are there.
> Midori powered part of Bing during its high time.
An OS that runs a single application in the real world. That proves nothing.
You haven't convinced me that a production grade OS implemented with a GC can tick every box an OS which doesn't have a GC can tick.
On the contrary actually. For all the experimentation that has been done not a single one has actually panned out. The possible programs you can create that have a GC is a subset of all possible programs that can be created without a GC.
I guess we always have to wait for them to develop top technology before the masses accept it.
That said, you're right that Java itself probably doesn't tick that box (except on hardware specifically designed to emulate the JVM; most "Java" OS projects use a small JVM written in a less-VM-dependent language), but Go provably does.
So with enough effort given external Assembly written functions and compiler specific language extensions and enough market share thanks UNIX clones, many mistake it as the only true way.
Stupid is not being open minded how the future might look like, how great researchers like Alan Kay envisioned the future of computing without constraining themselves to what others thought of them, we don't need faster horses.
A big thanks to all inventors and entrepreneurs (this is HN after all) that were able to build on top of endless failures from previous generations and deliver technological achievements that mankind is now able to enjoy, persisting on their endeavours, while a large majority was downplaying all their efforts.
Implying a language with a GC can go 10x as fast as a language without one. What are you smoking man I want some of that stuff.
Lisp has a garbage collector, and yet you can use it for operating system development: https://github.com/froggey/Mezzano
Go has a garbage collector, and yet you can use it for operating system development: http://lsub.org/ls/clive.html
There's some assembly in there, but it seems to be mostly Go.