[umanghere]

This seems to be quite similar to the other unikernel that was posted recently [1]. It would be useful to have an in-depth comparison of these (and other) unikernels, especially with regard to performance and compatibility.

I can see that HermiTux has the ability to select only the syscalls needed by the embedded program, and to transform syscalls to function calls, which seems quite interesting.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25405672

[codetrotter]

> transform syscalls to function calls

I thought that was kind of the point of a unikernel. Or am I mistaken? Does the other one from the other day not do that?

[michaelmior]

That's certainly part of the point (and probably one of the main performance benefits). However, even if this doesn't happen, a unikernel still gives the advantage that it's much more difficult to run undesired code and is likely to improve security.

[sitkack]

https://github.com/cloudius-systems/osv is an offshot of a project from ScyllaDB.

[hardwaresofton]

Bit of a nitpick, but from what I understand they were making osv and pivoted to ScyllaDB, correct?

[sitkack]

I only know what the readme says.

> OSv was originally designed and implemented by Cloudius Systems (now ScyllaDB) however currently it is being maintained and enhanced by a small community of volunteers.

[hardwaresofton]

Yeah that doesn't sound conclusive in either direction -- not clear if they made this on the way to ScyllaDB. I took another look just in case and found a source[0]:

> After much research into the market and technology, in mid-2014 the team decided to pivot away from OSv (still a live project). Instead they decided to embrace the Cassandra architecture but rewrite it from scratch in native code with all of the know-how of years of kernel/hypervisor coding. This would become the Scylla database.

[0]: https://www.scylladb.com/company/the-scylla-story/

[PeterCorless]

Correct. OSv came first, and then Seastar + Scylla.