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Operating Systems Software Linux

GeNToo - Gentoo on the NT Kernel 186

Posted by CmdrTaco from the obvious-migration-paths dept.
Enjoi writes "GeNToo is a version of the Gentoo meta distribution based on the NT kernel, (virtually) completely free of any Win32 code. It provides a complete text-mode Gentoo environment, with all GNU tools, Perl, Python and the other usual suspects. In addition, it comes with with full NT hardware driver support." Aptly named GeNToo, is it a step towards bringing Windows closer to open source? "
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GeNToo - Gentoo on the NT Kernel More

GeNToo - Gentoo on the NT Kernel

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  • First Post, yet no one cares (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cybermint ( 255744 ) * on Friday April 01, 2005 @03:45PM (#12113731)
    So much April Fools, so little news.
    • Why is this supposed to be "funny"? I actually think it's a decent concept, potentially worth pursuing. Believe it or not, beneath all the cruft, applications running in kernel space, and other oddities of the Win32 system, there actually exists a solid VMS kernel at the core. It was reasonably well designed with all kinds of modern features that are hard to find on any OS (including Windows itself :-/). I've always thought it to be one of the greatest crimes to humanity that Microsoft first allows the VMS
      • *happy dance* *happy dance* *doing the happy dance!*

        If you check the FAQ [gentooexperimental.org] for the project, they say that it is a REAL project! There's even installation instructions [gentooexperimental.org] to get it up and running! Now if you bozos would stop slashdotting the damn thing into the next century, I might be able to try it out!

        *happy dance* *happy dance* :-D
        • Ok, follow those instructions. Start with downloading the script. Good luck.

        • There's even installation instructions to get it up and running! Now if you bozos would stop slashdotting the damn thing into the next century, I might be able to try it out!

          The site is fine. The installation scripts are allegedly offline pending legal clearance, the stageball is 404, and there's no 'tinynt-logger' in portage, so good luck with those instructions. On a technical note, development of GeNToo could hardly avoid producing Portage on Interix on full Windows (Genterix?)--with less effort, more

        • Ok, bad news. The "architect" has just confirmed it to be a prank. He did mention that it wasn't far fetched, though, and what they really need is the source code to the Internix(STU) project to make it happen. He's speculated that it may be possible to get Microsoft to "Shared Source" the library. :-) /ME stops happy dance and sighs
      • Isn't what you are looking for called ReactOS?
    • Is this really a hoax? It sounds like it could be real or fake, but there's no April 1st giveaway on the site -- in fact the pages say they were last edited several days ago.

      In any case, here's to Gentoo users being the weeniest of us all.
    • I can think one thing more irritating than prdictable April Fools articles...

    • ...doesn't Debian have more exposure to running on alternative kernels? (i.e. Debian/NetBSD [debian.org], Debian/HURD [debian.org])

    • I don't think this is an April Fools' joke. Last activity on the project was March 29.

  • ReactOS + CoLinux (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Steven Edwards ( 677151 ) on Friday April 01, 2005 @03:45PM (#12113733)
    I know its April Fools but come on its not a half bad idea.
  • Maybe this will make it easier for first posts?

  • It's MADNESS! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ColonelFubster ( 758353 )
    How many of these must we be assalulted by? T3h funnays are lost.

    • How is this (Score:2, Insightful)

      by ColonelFubster ( 758353 )
      insightful?
    • One day a year, one freaking day a year, people not only get a chance to but are expected to leave seriousness behind and have a little fun.

      Slashdot is being slashdot and reporting on funny April 1st news for nerds from all the usual suspects (Gentoo, Gaming, Geek toys, Google, etc).

      Now Colonel Stickinthemud go tie someones shoelaces together, tell your boss your project is done on time and within budget, and maybe even have a little fun.

  • Enough already! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Chanc_Gorkon ( 94133 ) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <nokrog>> on Friday April 01, 2005 @03:46PM (#12113747)
    Courtesy of Wikipedia:

    "Traditionally, pranks are supposed to end by noon. Those done afterwards are supposed to bring bad luck to the perpetrator."

    • It's not noon yet! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Vince ( 4999 )
      If you're on the "best" coast, you've still got 15 minutes left!
    • where's the "+1, hope it's true" mod option when you need it?
    • I guess that depends on your time zone...

    • Re:Enough already! (Score:5, Informative)

      by Fwonkas ( 11539 ) <joe@fla p p i n g c r a n e .com> on Friday April 01, 2005 @03:52PM (#12113838) Homepage
      Which is immediately followed by: "However, this is not universally adhered to, and many of the hoaxes listed below appeared after noon. Anyone who fails to respond to the tricks played on them in the proper spirit of tolerance and amusement will also suffer bad luck."
    • Yes, but on whose midnight did the 'pranks' start, and on whose noon are they supposed to end?
    • Has it occurred to you that this might not be a joke? Technically, I see no reason why what they are claiming shouldn't be possible. There is nothing on the site that might give away the fact that it's a hoax. The last site update was (apparently) on 3/28/2005.

      I think you've jumped the gun.

      • Be serious. I mean really. One who says such thing doesn't know that Gentoo requires you to compile almost every damn thing. How can you compile the NT Kernel without source???
        • Gentoo does not require you compile anything, you can use precompiled packages. There is also the Gentoo project for OSX which as far as I know doesn't mess with the base system at all.

          Besides which this is aready somewhat possible. The NetBSD pkgsrc system (also derrived from FreeBSD ports) can run on Iterix (a.k.a Windows Services for Unix). The driver support and such is of course bullshit, but it's quite possible that we could one day see some form of gentoo on NT.

      • Has it occurred to you that this might not be a joke? Technically, I see no reason why what they are claiming shouldn't be possible. There is nothing on the site that might give away the fact that it's a hoax. The last site update was (apparently) on 3/28/2005.

        I think you've jumped the gun.

        Since this is a Linux story, shouldn't your last line read:

        I think you've jumped the GNU.
    • "Traditionally, pranks are supposed to end by noon. Those done afterwards are supposed to bring bad luck to the perpetrator."

      Would you consider a mass migration of readers from slashdot bad luck or karma?
    • "Traditionally, pranks are supposed to end by noon. Those done afterwards are supposed to bring bad luck to the perpetrator."

      Ok, I call BS. Where does this "bad luck" come from, and who/what person/force/deity causes it to come to pass?

  • Stop Complaining (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 01, 2005 @03:46PM (#12113758)
    Taco only gets to blow off steam by trolling readers this much once a year.

    Last year it was posting the evil bit story 12 times.

    This year it's posting obviously parody/satirical stories, a little too obvious to be good April Fool's jokes as someone pointed out.

  • a note (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The page says it was updated 03/28/05. Maybe not an April Fools dealie?
    • I'm somewhat mystified on this one. Because the core idea of having something unicine running on top of NT is, from what I've heard, not impossible. It supposed to be at least possible to implement Linux system calls over the NT HAL (I don't know how much of the Executive would be left over --- see this diagram [tamos.net] of NT's structure).

    • Further Research... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by tsanth ( 619234 ) on Friday April 01, 2005 @04:02PM (#12113963)
      The screenshots [gentooexperimental.org] leave much to be desired. Their bootlog.txt [gentooexperimental.org], likewise, looks hacked together from a standard NT boot and a CLI transcript. Plus, their Quick Install Reference [gentooexperimental.org] mentions a "nt-isocreator.sh" script which is missing from the main page, pending a blessing from their lawyer friend.

      Perhaps someone could check on #gentoo-nt on irc.freenode.net (also from the quick-install ref) to see what's up?

      Assuming this is a joke, kudos to them for back-dating the page; I'm now curious.
  • also likes to beat a gag to death...It's an interesting form of humor.

  • Wikipedia (Score:3, Interesting)

    by calibanDNS ( 32250 ) <brad_statonNO@SPAMhotmail.com> on Friday April 01, 2005 @03:47PM (#12113775)
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_1%2C_2005 [wikipedia.org]
    Read that list and you won't need to hang out all day to see which ones /. picks up on. There, now you can all go out and enjoy the day. Note: Definately read the article about Microsoft introducing World of Wordcraft, the first MMOWP.
  • But... does it play ogg?

  • "Aptly Named"??? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Since Gentoo's mascot is "Larry the Cow," I think an aptly named mascot for "GeNToo" would be "Stinky the Cowpie."
  • Now, with all the april fools joke headlines, this is to much. you wan't be able to tell if a story is real or not on first glance! Oh, the inhumanity!
  • it's bad enough waiting for traditional Gentoo to compile under normal circumstances, now I gotta wait for GeNToo to compile me a kernel too!?

  • I'm still waiting... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Trailer Trash ( 60756 ) on Friday April 01, 2005 @03:50PM (#12113816) Homepage
    for Taco to dupe an April Fool's post.
  • I think this isn't real, but wouldn't this be just like the CoLinux discussed last year. Running the linux kernel as a process on the NT kernel just like a vertual server. I still don't really understand the purpose of such a piece of code since emulators would do the same job in a more abstract way. Anyway, will anything real be posted today?
    • No, no it doesn't. This project is porting Gentoo to the NT kernel, the same way Gentoo is being ported to the BSD and Solaris kernels.

      I'm not sure its an April Fools joke. If it is, its violating the number one rule of April Fools jokes, include the date somewhere. The only date is from a couple of days ago.
    • Anyway, will anything real be posted today?

      Yes, the iPod Socks [slashdot.org] article is real. Old, but real.

  • Did anyone laugh? Maybe I'm getting grumpy in my old age but these jokes aren't even making me smile.
  • Come on, loosen up...this one was Funny! Way funnier than the space shuttle one.

    Although, is there always this much fake-posting on April 1?

  • /.ing whores. (Score:1, Insightful)

    by jsrlepage ( 696948 )
    you nearly killed their server, you slashdotting whores.

  • Best whack idea yet. (Score:5, Funny)

    by smittyoneeach ( 243267 ) * on Friday April 01, 2005 @03:53PM (#12113853) Homepage Journal
    No graphical subsystem. We do not provide X11. This requires major work, and is not likely to change in the near future.
    Poor network support. While the drivers work, the user mode tools do not exist in POSIX form. This is being worked on. In the meantime, we are making available some Win32 text-mode tools, but these require you to install a minimal Win32 subsystem.
    No configuration tools. The NT kernel is designed to be controlled via the registry. While we do provide a minimal registry editor, it is unfortunately rather difficult to use for non-experts to do any kind of configuration. We are considering various options here, the most likely candidate being a /proc-like filesystem as an interface to the registry.
    No partitioning tools. We don't (yet) have fdisk, so all partitioning must be done before installation. GUIs come, and GUIs go, but the CLI goes on forever. Emacs.
    Networking is of course critical.
    The thought of an emacs customization buffer supporting the Windows registry is at least seven kinds of perverse. :)
    The partitioning tools are the least concern. If it's a multi-boot, and you have to provide a licensed XP (regardless of whether you agree, do uphold the law), you probably aren't starting wholly from scratch on this project.
    The really interesting thing to do with this would be to give the NT kernel a User Mode Linux wrapper, and then let the little NT byotch-process run all of its little hardware drivers. I would love to flex my HP 11g duplex laser printer under my 'regular' Gentoo boot...
  • In Other News... Farmer O'Brian is complaining about his pigs flying out of the pen. He's pretty sure they are flying towards the gates of hell, since it is nice and cool there ever since it began thawing from it's recent freeze. And stay tuned, when we get back we will tell you of a new product on the market that actually removes the dihydrogen monoxide from water!
    • "He's pretty sure they are flying towards the gates of hell,..."

      "Gates" should be capitalized, no?

  • umm... (Score:4, Funny)

    by underactive ( 161701 ) on Friday April 01, 2005 @03:55PM (#12113867) Homepage
    Error 404: Funny Not Found
  • You mean, "emergely named", don't you...?

  • First, if you carefully read the splash page, you'll notice that it incorrectly has a Copyright 2005 Disney Corporation notice above the Copyright 2005 Microsoft Corporation notice.

    I think this is due to their addition of the unstable Hillary Duff song module to the platform, which as we all know has a required royalty payment, and is thus incompatible with most Open Source implementations, unless you're using a Sony DDR memory stick for data transfer, which includes the patch in its kernel. It's hard to
  • It provides a complete text-mode Gentoo environment

    Useless.
    (And no, I didn't RTFA, TFA is /.ed)
  • They say that the white smoke generator addition has a few bugs in it, but they haven't had to reboot in over three weeks.

  • And I thought Gentoo for Solaris [slashdot.org] was a joke .... Maybe the Ubunu Co-Linux thing should have been announced tonight.

  • Serious Foolishness (Score:4, Insightful)

    by buckhead_buddy ( 186384 ) on Friday April 01, 2005 @04:13PM (#12114045)
    The April Fools "pranks" that I have come to respect the most are those that use the cover of a silly prank to challenge an idea or convention that's too ingrained to even bring it up without that cover.

    Something like the Pope entering a purely vegetative state before making his thoughts known on the subject as they apply to him personally. You'd get roasted alive as a heathen and heretic for even mentioning this possibility, but properly couched in an April Fools story, it'd give the avenue to address a previously inexpressible idea (due to social conventions).

    This type of Gentoo on NT is probably a good geek equivalent of that, but I'm disappointed that there are fewer examples of the trend. Admittedly, any real conversation probably wouldn't happen today (if ever on Slashdot), but using the cover of April Fools pranks to break social conventions is probably the best and most justifiable use of the day. I just wish more constructive discussion had been generated from expressing the inexpressible.
  • This isn't as crazy an idea as it sounds. Gentoo runs on several non-Linux systems as it is, including FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and OS X. Why not port Gentoo to cygwin, a suitably UNIX-like environment which already exists on windows? The required devtools are already available with cygwin, and could be used to bootstrap portage and the gentoo base system. Sounds fun.
  • Of course they could have back-dated it, but Interix is real and does run as its own subsystem. This is by no means impossible or even outrageous.
  • ...building on the biggest strengths of two diverse platforms. They're combining the user-friendliness and intuitiveness of the UNIX command-line UI with the rock-solid elegant architectural foundations of Microsoft Windows.

    I think it's a sure winner.

    • the rock-solid elegant architectural foundations of Microsoft Windows.

      NT is not Windows. And is potentially quite an interesting platform if it could ever jettison the Win32 carbuncle.

  • Read it wrong (Score:2, Insightful)

    by gammygator ( 820041 )
    Is it beer:thirty yet? I read

    "Gentoo meta distribution based on the NT kernel"

    as

    "Gentoo mentally masterbates on the NT kernel".

    Jeesh.
  • ... i don't understand.

    this could _so_ easily be real.

    1) NT is a Mach Kernel, and has _three_ subsystems that i know of - POSIX, OS/2 and Win32. the POSIX subsystem has been implemented once by microsoft and independently by opennt.com (can't find them any more).

    2) Cooperative Linux is a port of linux to userspace as a Win32 application.

    it would actually be pretty sodding easy and doable.

    • Re:"Cooperative Linux" (Score:3, Informative)

      by argent ( 18001 )
      NT is a Mach Kernel

      NT is not based on Mach, but it has similarities in its design.

      the POSIX subsystem has been implemented once by microsoft and independently by opennt.com (can't find them any more)

      Try Windows Services for UNIX [microsoft.com], which is based on the POSIX subsystem and what this alleged GeNToo is based on.
  • For one thing, I would actually like to see this. For another thing, this is a fantastic example of the usability of open copyright licenses, a la Creative Commons in this case.

    Because the Gentoo website is in the creative commons, a person was able to make this funny joke for us, without infringing on someone's copyright.
  • and a very cool project. I cant wait to run the latest win32 opengl games on reactOS, as soon as it has a reasonable commandline and complete API. The last time I was so excited by an OS was when I discovered Linux in 1996. ReactOS will be the project to take desktop from Microsoft, and give it to un*x.

    I ran the test iso on vmware, wasnt impressed. Plus it crashed a few times. However being a free project its here to stay, and can only grow.
  • I check though the sub-groups for any interesting news that has come over the past week, stumble over some odd things to look at, and only then later check the date :)

    Kinda wish they'd take them down once the days over, it's not supposed to be april fools month, just the 1st.

    But a nice gag anyway, first one I've fallen for in ages, mainly because I didn't have my guard up :)

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