Put the OS back in OSDI

Oxide and Friends · 7 Sept 2021 · 1h 12m · Episode 13

What this episode covers

Bryan Cantrill, Adam Leventhal, and colleagues from Oxide Computer Company discuss Timothy Roscoe’s keynote, arguing that modern operating systems have 'congealed' rather than being designed, leading to opaque, proprietary hardware layers like the AMD Platform Security Processor. The group advocates for open hardware and firmware, citing the resurgence of low-speed hardware development via FPGAs and RISC-V as an opportunity to build new, secure systems like Precursor and Xous. They critique the industry's reliance on backward compatibility, using Shingled Magnetic Recording and Intel Optane as examples where marginal gains did not justify the complexity of changing established abstractions.

Mentioned

Companies
Oxide Computer Company, AMD, Intel
Products
Optane, Precursor, Xous, Fuchsia, HarmonyOS
Chips
Platform Security Processor, RISC-V, FPGA
Tools
KiCad
Also
UEFI

Other shows on the same ground, closest first.

  • Embedded.fm · 57m

    342: That Girl's Brain

    Jessie Frazelle, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Oxide Computer, explains how the company builds open-source, rack-scale servers for enterprises by adopting hyperscaler-style hardware design. She details the decision to open-source firmware and hardware to eliminate vendor finger-pointing and security vulnerabilities inherent in proprietary BMCs. The discussion covers their use of Rust for firmware and control plane software, power efficiency metrics like PUE, and the challenges of deploying high-density compute in traditional colocation environments.

  • The Amp Hour · 57m

    Finding Hardware Flaws with Laura Abbott

    Laura Abbott, an engineer at Oxide Computer, discusses her accidental discovery of a buffer overflow vulnerability in the ROM update mechanism of the NXP LPC55S69 microcontroller while working on Oxide's server root of trust. She explains how Oxide is rebuilding the server from the ground up with a focus on hardware security, utilizing their open-source operating system Hubris and the Rust programming language to mitigate risks like memory safety issues. The conversation covers the architecture of the server's secure components, including the service processor and TrustZone-M, as well as the challenges of remote hardware debugging and contributing to the Linux kernel community.

  • The Amp Hour · 1h 08m

    An Interview with Jack Ganssle (2nd)

    Jack Ganssle, author of the Embedded Muse, discusses the evolution of embedded firmware, highlighting the shift toward cloud-connected platforms and the acquisition of RTOS providers like FreeRTOS by Amazon and ExpressLogic by Microsoft. He critiques the current state of vendor-supplied software, praising Renesas' Synergy platform for providing fully tested, guaranteed software components, while noting the decline of legacy RTOSs like VxWorks. Ganssle emphasizes that firmware development requires rigorous design and quality processes, arguing that jumping into code without solid requirements leads to catastrophic failures, as seen in recent medical device and aviation incidents.

  • Unnamed Reverse Engineering Podcast · 1h 43m

    044 - Scots Army Knife

    Piotr Esden-Tempski of 1BitSquared discusses the company's role in manufacturing open-source hardware, specifically the Glasgow digital interface explorer, the iCEBreaker FPGA board, and the Black Magic Probe debugger. He explains the economic rationale for using an old Quad 4C pick-and-place machine for small-batch production and details how Glasgow uses an FPGA to dynamically generate hardware protocols via the nmigen HDL. The conversation also covers the geopolitical shift toward RISC-V in China, the challenges of debugging legacy industrial equipment, and the importance of documentation and community education in the open-source hardware ecosystem.

  • Unnamed Reverse Engineering Podcast · 1h 41m

    029 - Old Timey Name Droppin'

    Philip Freidin, a veteran engineer and consultant with experience at AMD and Xilinx, discusses the evolution of the semiconductor industry, the challenges of reverse engineering FPGAs, and his current projects. He explains why reverse engineering an FPGA bitstream is often futile compared to functional analysis, detailing the complexity of VLIW architectures and encryption. Freidin also shares his experience creating the open-source OshChip and his new educational initiative, DSP-for-KIDS.

The summary, chapters and topics are generated from the episode’s audio by this directory, not written by Oxide and Friends. The episode itself belongs to its publisher.