Software Engineering Radio: The Singularity Research OS with Galen Hunt

Podcast (MP3): Download

Hosts: Markus 

Guests:

Galen Hunt

Recording venue:

In this episode we talk to Galen Hunt about the Singularity research OS. Galen is the head of Microsoft's OS Research Group and, together with a team of about 30 other researches, has built Singularity.

We started our discussion by covering the basics of Singularity: why it was designed, what the goals of the project are as well as some of the architectural foundations of Singularity: software isolated processes, contract-based channels and manifest-based programs. In this context we also looked at the role of the Spec# and Sing# programming languages and the role of static analysis tools to statically verify important properties of a singularity application.

We then looked a little bit more closely at the role of the kernel and how it is different from kernels in traditional OSes.

In a second part of the discussion we looked at some of the experiments the group did based on the OS. These include compile-time reflection, using hardware protection domains, heterogenerous multiprocessing as well as the typed assembly language

We closed the conversation with a look at some of the performance characteristics of Singularity, compatibility with traditional operating systems and a brief look at how the findings from Singularity influence product development at Microsoft.

• Singularity
• The paper that inspired this episode
• Galen's website
• L4 Microkernels
• The Mach Kernel
• Minix 3
• Spec#
• Singularity Tools and Sources