Its about footprint. We certainly will run Linux on the Mill, but its work we don't have to put on the critical path. L4 is just a familiar lightweight OS, and we're keen to play with Mill-specific security features which are particularly applicable to microkernels too.
When we do port Linux, I expect it to become much more microkernel like, as in why would you want your disk drivers to be able to read write video memory etc?
> why would you want your disk drivers to be able to read write video memory etc?
That is a much bigger issue than the CPU architecture, as it has more to do with how the peripheral hardware works (firmware, DMA, etc.), but I appreciate the effort.
Because the Mill has a single address space with memory protection, which works a lot better with L4 than it does with Linux. Porting Linux directly would probably be possible, but a huge effort the team wouldn't be able to pull off without a lot of extra resources.
When we do port Linux, I expect it to become much more microkernel like, as in why would you want your disk drivers to be able to read write video memory etc?