July 25, 2026
Hurd times, loud comments
GNU Hurd gets 9pfs, OpenNTPD, dynamic /dev/ entries, and more
Hurd stumbles forward and the internet can’t decide if it’s inspiring or a 35-year punchline
TLDR: GNU Hurd made real progress, including a smarter way to detect hardware and a handful of useful software ports, which could make the long-delayed system less clunky to use. Commenters were torn between cheering its survival, joking that it’s decades behind, and arguing over whether the hype was sincere or pure sarcasm.
GNU Hurd — the famously long-running, forever-“almost there” operating system project — just dropped another progress report, and yes, the comment section instantly became the real main event. On paper, the update is solid: better support for sharing files, improved time-sync tools, a Neovim port, and a big cleanup for how hardware shows up at startup so users won’t need a bunch of fake-looking placeholder device entries anymore. For normal people: the system is getting less awkward to use, little by little.
But the crowd? Absolutely split between wholesome encouragement and ruthless comedy. One camp is genuinely happy to see the project still breathing, with commenters saying they’ve always loved the idea even if they don’t expect it to go mainstream. Another went full tragic optimism: Hurd is alive — “well, kind of” — and maybe, just maybe, AI could give this painfully slow project a shot of adrenaline.
Then came the roast session. One commenter delivered the killer line that this brings GNU Hurd to “about the year 1995,” which is the kind of joke that lands because everyone knows Hurd has been in development for what feels like forever. Another zeroed in on the article’s over-the-top praise and basically asked, is this serious or is the sarcasm melting the page? Even supporters admitted newer rivals like Redox and Genode now have more momentum. Translation: Hurd’s latest update is real progress, but the internet is still treating it like tech’s most lovable zombie project — shambling, fascinating, and somehow impossible to ignore.
Key Points
- •GNU Hurd’s latest quarterly update includes experimental 9pfs support, a work-in-progress OpenNTPD port, and a Neovim port.
- •The article highlights ongoing kernel work to change Hurd’s /dev handling from static device entries to dynamic population at boot.
- •Mikhail Karpov added mmap checks in several places and worked on adding storeio to the bootstrap chain.
- •The current Hurd setup described in the article uses statically defined /dev entries such as /dev/wd0s1 for swap and /dev/wd0s5 for the root filesystem.
- •The dhcpcd port is continuing to improve and is described as important for future IPv6 support.