GNU/Hurd strikes back
How to use the legendary OS in a (somewhat) practical way
GNU/Hurd is alive and kickin’
The GNU/Hurd is the Sagrada Família of the Software World: having started to develop in 1990, the GNU/Hurd has yet to reach version 1.0. The Linux kernel, on the other hand, began development in 1993 and was initially considered a “kludge” until the Hurd was completed. It is now matured and widely used.
Like the Loch Ness Monster, many believe that GNU/Hurd is vaporware and does not exist. It does exist and continues to evolve, albeit at a slow pace. Just recently, the Debian GNU/Hurd 2023 has been released. You can use the GNU/Hurd right now.
GNU/Hurd? GNU Hurd? or Debian GNU/Hurd?
There has been a well-known ideological controversy over the names GNU and Linux. Anywise, it would be helpful to sort out the word.
GNU is the name of a Unix-compatible operating system (an acronym of “GNU is Not Unix”), and the GNU Project is a project to create GNU. Hence, a flavor of GNU that adopted Linux as its kernel is GNU/Linux. There was also GNU/kFreeBSD, which adopted the FreeBSD kernel, although it has recently been discontinued.
