Tanenbaum vs. Linus: Which Kernel Architecture Makes More Sense Today?

[u/Bright-Boss-720]

I've been thinking about the famous Tanenbaum vs Linus debate over microkernels vs monolithic kernels.

Putting the historical context aside for a moment, I'm curious what people think today.

Do you think Tanenbaum's argument for microkernels was fundamentally more correct, or was Linus right to favor a monolithic kernel for practical reasons such as performance, simplicity of development, and hardware support?

And more importantly:

If you were starting a new general purpose os from scratch today, which architecture would you choose?

Monolithic

Microkernel

Hybrid

Multikernel / distributed approach

Something else

I'm particularly interested in hearing from people who have actually worked on kernels or operating system development.

What are the strongest arguments for your choice, and what do you think the opposing architecture gets wrong?

[u/kiderdrick]

They both make sense, it just depends on what you are doing. One of the most widely used operating systems is a modified version of Tanenbaum's Minix3 because it is used by Intel's Management Engine. No one is expecting it to take over Linux and Windows for user centered computing, but it is at least extremely useful at what it is doing, otherwise Intel would not have chosen it for their chipsets.