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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
With Microsoft embracing Linux ever more tightly, might it do the heretofore unthinkable and dump the NT kernel in favor of the Linux kernel? No, I’m not ready for the funny farm. As it prepares Windows 11, Microsoft has been laying the groundwork for such a radical release.
I’ve long toyed with the idea that Microsoft could release a desktop Linux. Now I’ve started taking that idea more seriously — with a twist. Microsoft could replace Windows’ innards, the NT kernel, with a Linux kernel.
It would still look like Windows. For most users, it would still work like Windows. But the engine running it all would be Linux.
Why would Microsoft do this? Well, have you been paying attention to Windows lately? It has been one foul-up after another. Just in the last few months there was the registry backup fail and numerous and regular machine-hobbling Windows updates. In fact, updates have grown so sloppy you have to seriously wonder whether it’s safer to stay open to attacks or “upgrade” your system with a dodgy patch.
Remember when letting your Windows system get automatic patches every month was nothing to worry about? I do. Good times.
Why is this happening? The root cause of all these problems is that, for Microsoft, Windows desktop software is now a back-burner product. It wants your company to move you to Windows Virtual Desktop and replace your existing PC-based software, like Office 2019, with software-as-a-service (SaaS) programs like Office 365. It’s obvious, right? Nobody in Redmond cares anymore, so quality assurance for Windows the desktop is being flushed down the toilet.
Many of the problems afflicting Windows do not reside in the operating system’s upper levels. Instead, their roots are deep down in the NT kernel. What, then, if we could replace that rotten kernel with a fresh, healthy kernel? Maybe one that is being kept up to date by a worldwide group of passionate developers. Yes, my bias is showing, but that’s Linux, and it’s a solution that makes a lot of sense.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday September 18 2019, @03:36PM (7 children)
This will never happen. Microsoft would never support random Joe end-user having that level of control over the kernel of their main product line. For instance, a Linux kernel that could handle Windows could also be modified to intercept licensing checks heading out the networking stack and respond with "yeah, you're cool", and also modified to make it so the signatures and other methods higher-level stacks used to verify the kernel wasn't modified were "correct". And that can be distributed as much as is needed as soon as a single person figures it out.
If they were going to put in a *nix kernel, they'd use a BSD as their base, which would allow them to make modifications but not give out the source that would make it easy to spot. For example, with a BSD kernel, just like with the current NT kernel, they could set up a special networking stack that's used only to communicate with Microsoft without making that communication visible to the user in any way other than network sniffing.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 18 2019, @03:43PM (2 children)
Are you forgetting Secure Boot and the fact that the Linux Kernel is GPLv2?
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday September 18 2019, @06:42PM (1 child)
Are you forgetting that the user has physical access to their own machine and thus has the power to modify Secure Boot, and also that Secure Boot verifies the bootloader but not what the bootloader loads?
And of course you can also modify a running kernel with module changes.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 18 2019, @08:47PM
... not to mention that pesky "compile from source" option I've heard about.
(Score: 2) by bart9h on Wednesday September 18 2019, @04:39PM (2 children)
You don't see random Joe end-users having that kind of control on Android, do you?
(Score: 4, Touché) by Thexalon on Wednesday September 18 2019, @05:17PM
Yes, I do: For instance, lots of normal people "root" their phones, and are then able to do things Google didn't intend for them to be able to do. There are apps, instructions, etc out in the wild to enable them to do just that.
And I'd expect the same thing to happen for any Linux-based Windows.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday September 18 2019, @08:21PM
You mean like random Joe end-users having that kind of control on iCrap, do you? Or the PSX, or the PS2, PS3, XBOX, GBA, GBA Advanced, ReplayTV, TiVO, XBOX360, Wii, etc.....
It's not the OS on Android that is locked down, it's the manufacturers locking the consumers out of complete ownership of the device because complete ownership is rather inconvenient for corporations.
Yet, its still not impossible to get a fully rooted or jail broken device.
So perhaps not every random Joe does it, but more than enough people do.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday September 18 2019, @09:44PM
Windows isn't their main product line and hasn't been for some time now. It's not where they make their money.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.