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posted by martyb on Wednesday September 18 2019, @02:51PM   Printer-friendly
from the you're-crazy dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 18 2019, @03:43PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 18 2019, @03:43PM (#895692)

    Are you forgetting Secure Boot and the fact that the Linux Kernel is GPLv2?

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  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday September 18 2019, @06:42PM (1 child)

    by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday September 18 2019, @06:42PM (#895773)

    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.

    --
    Vote for Pedro
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 18 2019, @08:47PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 18 2019, @08:47PM (#895817)

      ... not to mention that pesky "compile from source" option I've heard about.