hubris VS meta-raspberrypi

Is that the same extremely high-quality open-source code that currently has a failing build?

https://github.com/oxidecomputer/hubris

With respect to Hubris, the build badge was, in turns out, pointing to a stale workflow. (That is, the build was succeeding, but the build badge was busted.) This comment has been immortalized in the fix.[0]

With respect to Humility, I am going to resist the temptation of pointing out why one of those directories has a different nomenclature with respect to its delimiter -- and just leave it at this: if you really want to find some filthy code in Humility, you can do much, much better than that!

[0] https://github.com/oxidecomputer/hubris/commit/651a9546b20ce...

A lot of questions in there! Taking these in order:

1. We aren't making standalone servers: the Oxide compute sled comes in the Oxide rack. So are not (and do not intend to be) a drop in replacement for extant rack mounted servers.

2. We have taken a fundamentally different approach to firmware, with a true root of trust that can attest to the service processor -- which can turn attest to the system software. This prompts a lot of questions (e.g., who attests to the root of trust?), and there is a LOT to say about this; look for us to talk a lot more about this

3. In stark contrast (sadly) to nearly everyone else in the server space, the firmware we are developing is entirely open source. More details on that can be found in Cliff Biffle's 2021 OSFC talk and the Hubris and Humility repos.[0][1][2]

4. Definitely not vaporware! We are in the process of shipping to our first customers; you can follow our progress in our Oxide and Friends podcast.[3]

[0] https://www.osfc.io/2021/talks/on-hubris-and-humility-develo...

[1] https://github.com/oxidecomputer/hubris

[2] https://github.com/oxidecomputer/humility

[3] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/

everywhere, for example in https://github.com/oxidecomputer/hubris/search?q=dyn

Is Box really allocating here? Is the "Rust By Example" text incomplete?

Then I had to stop learning Rust for other reasons, but this doubt really hit me at the time.

I work on an embedded OS in Rust (Hubris) that has a very bespoke build system. As part of the build system, it has to set environmental variables based on (1) the target device and (2) the specific "task"; this is an OS with task-level isolation, so tasks are compiled as individual Rust crates.

When we started the company, we knew it would be a three year build -- and indeed, our first product is in the final stages of development (i.e. EMC/safety certification). We have been very transparent about our progress along the way[0][1][2][3][4][5][6][7] -- and our software is essentially all open source, so you can follow along there as well.[8][9][10]

If you are asking "does anyone want a rack-scale computer?" the (short) answer is: yes, they do. The on-prem market has been woefully underserved -- and there are plenty of folks who are sick of Dell/HPE/VMware/Cisco, to say nothing of those who are public cloud borne and wondering if they should perhaps own some of their own compute rather than rent it all.

[0] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/holistic-bo...

[1] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/the-oxide-s...

[2] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/bringup-lab...

[3] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/more-tales-...

[4] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/another-lpc...

[5] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/the-pragmat...

[6] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/tales-from-...

[7] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/the-sidecar...

[8] https://github.com/oxidecomputer/omicron

[9] https://github.com/oxidecomputer/propolis

[10] https://github.com/oxidecomputer/hubris

Hubris is a microkernel-ish OS for embedded systems, and has a bunch of documentation about its design:

https://hubris.oxide.computer/reference/

It's all open-source on Github:

https://github.com/oxidecomputer/hubris

(I work at Oxide, mostly using Hubris)

Ahh whoops you’re right, lol. Embarrassing.

Hubris was designed to be easy to port to RISC-V, so yes! We didn’t end up doing that though. Someone else did though! https://github.com/oxidecomputer/hubris/discussions/365

I'm writing code for low-level management of fully custom servers and network switches, working in the Hubris repository (which is open source!)

How do you figure Pis have bad integration with Yocto?

https://github.com/agherzan/meta-raspberrypi

For what it's worth, the entire Pi lineup is also well supported by Buildroot. In-tree, no less.

I second Yocto. It's the kernel in use by the OpenBMC project

One last "option" is yocto but tis is not good for desktop, but it can be a fun project.

Thanks for reading!

>What would you say it is the best way yo keep a Raspberry system "auto-updated"?

I think Debian packages are better than what I was doing, but if I were starting from scratch, I'd try to use Yocto[0] or NixOS[1].

Take this with a grain of salt, because this is secondhand from another founder who had good experience with Yocto, but from what she told me it's optimized for the case of pushing out updates to embedded devices. One of the pitfalls of Raspberry Pis is that the microSDs are vulnerable to filesystem corruption, which can leave the device unbootable. I believe Yocto protects against that where there are always two bootable partitions, so you failover to the other partition and can recover.

[0] https://www.yoctoproject.org/

[1] https://nixos.org/

Yeah, that's the kind of stuff which has made Ubuntu Core rub me the wrong way before this. I'm a much bigger fan of Yocto[1], with something like Rauc[2] for the software upgrade system. It's more work to get going, but in the end, you're in control of your product, not Canonical.

[1]: https://www.yoctoproject.org/