What’s the deal with the Hurd? It’s the Free Software Foundation’s UNIX kernel, designed to compete with … err … live in perfect harmony with the Linux kernel. The article from DDJ on the Hurd contains lots of good technical information, just skip over all of the editorializing and revisionist history. Of particular interest is the detailed comparison of monolithic kernels (like the Linux kernel) to microkernels (like Mach and the Hurd).