Post by: gunug on February 07, 2009, 11:19:04 AM
QUOTE
Dmitry Zavalishin is cooking up a new operating system. He calls it Phantom. Phantom is a different approach on the OS than any other out there, with the primary goal of being immortal. In Phantom, powering off the computer will not cause programs to lose state. They can pick up where they left off as soon as the machine is turned back on.
There are a few obvious uses to this sort of technology - medical, military, and mobile - where automatic state preservation will save the programmer from a lot of mistakes and wasted time. But there's also a possibility that the increased productivity may give Phantom some headway into the commercial server market.
To accomplish this automatic state preservation, Phantom continuously snapshots system memory on to disk. At first glance, that seems like a big synchronization problem: All the programs running should have to pause while the snapshot process reads their internal state. However, if you design the operating system around this goal, the process isn't that intense. The fundamental competency of Phantom is creating this snapshot cheaply, without disturbing current processes.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/03/phantom_russian_os/
There are a few obvious uses to this sort of technology - medical, military, and mobile - where automatic state preservation will save the programmer from a lot of mistakes and wasted time. But there's also a possibility that the increased productivity may give Phantom some headway into the commercial server market.
To accomplish this automatic state preservation, Phantom continuously snapshots system memory on to disk. At first glance, that seems like a big synchronization problem: All the programs running should have to pause while the snapshot process reads their internal state. However, if you design the operating system around this goal, the process isn't that intense. The fundamental competency of Phantom is creating this snapshot cheaply, without disturbing current processes.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/03/phantom_russian_os/
This does seem like a good approach to pickup and move type systems. . .you can't always count on batteries. I'm not thinking that this is to be a replacement for every need; but maybe something to flavor other operating systems in the future.
Post by: Xairbusdriver on February 07, 2009, 03:15:11 PM
QUOTE
the primary goal of being immortal.
And this guys kinds he knows how...
Ideas are a dime a dozen (or less, in this economy). Implementation, is always more profitable/useful. 
QUOTE
At first glance, that seems like a big synchronization problem: All the programs running should have to pause while the snapshot process reads their internal state. However, if you design the operating system around this goal, the process isn't that intense. The fundamental competency of Phantom is creating this snapshot cheaply, without disturbing current processes.
Not that intense? Really? Just because you build the OS around that huge task? Maybe he means the operation of all those other tasks will not be very intense! 
Most of the CPUs work will involve making 'snapshots.' OTOH, with the actual tasks having to relinquish so many cycles to the 'snapshot' task, they won't be doing a heck of a lot, anyway, thus making the 'snapshots' smaller and faster! 
Easy! Just change the purpose of the OS from running apps to making 'snapshots!' Case closed. Next?Of course, by the time this guys realizes what immortality really means, there will be devices/methods/technologies that will operate at speeds only dreamed of nowadays. So, we should look forward to having systems that not only are always ready to restart after the presumably constant problem of crashes, but we do that while enjoying smooth Flash players.
Guess it's easier to dream up things like this than actually create an OS with better stability than those we now use. 
Or, maybe he uses a Windows machine? 