It's Time for Operating Systems to Rediscover Hardware
summary
Argues that modern hardware is wildly heterogeneous (SoCs with many processors, nonuniform address spaces) and that Linux only controls a small cluster while the rest of the machine runs disparate firmwares, causing cross‑SoC security failures (Qualcomm modem DMA exploit) and broken power management; cites OSDI numbers (31 papers, ~6 on OS design) and three recent non‑Linux OS papers, describes building Enzian (CPU/FPGA board) and reading an NXP manual (8,981 pages) as concrete ways to study and fix the problem.
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chapters (14)
- 0:00Introduction and context
- 2:26OS research landscape
- 4:43The problem with OS research
- 7:16Defining operating systems
- 10:09Hardware reality vs. fantasy
- 14:16The crisis in OS design
- 19:24Security and power challenges
- 25:43The decline of OS research
- 27:45Addressing OS denial
- 32:28Technical solutions and future
- 40:00Building research platforms
- 43:57The hidden complexity
- 45:47Call to action and conclusion
- 48:45Q&A Session
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