A two-hour Oxide and Friends session answering questions after shipping the first Oxide rack. Topics include making hardware as a startup and why Oxide chose illumos.
Why Hacker News points people here: HN cites it as Oxide's own explanation of how they ship hardware as a startup and why they picked illumos.
“We have talked quite a bit about what it's like to be making hardware as a startup”HN comment, 2023
Discussion of rack bootstrap time versus traditional setup
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One benefit is that they're competing in an industry where the time to get a sled up and running for compute can be measured in weeks (they say they've heard up to 90 days) whereas their solution is basically plug and play - Bryan was trying to get Steve to admit set up took "hours" whereas Steve was hedging and saying customers could get started "within a week." They go into more details on their podcast, and this section in particular covers the bootstrap time: this video Pretty fascinating stuff.
RecommendscnstAug 2025
“Great episode!”
Episode with funny vendor support stories
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> this video Great episode! The Dell PERC "parity issue" "you're the only customer having this issue" story is hilarious, reminds me of my own experience getting support over the years as a non-Windows user! Sadly, today, "non-Windows" is simply being replaced with "non-Linux", so, if you run BSD or Illumos, it's still the same issues. Oxide Computer is great, I really do hope they succeed, because it does seem like an uphill battle!
Cites itbcantrillJul 2023
“We have talked quite a bit about what it's like to be making hardware as a startup”
Q&A about making hardware as a startup
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We have talked quite a bit about what it's like to be making hardware as a startup in our Oxide and Friends podcast[0] -- and one might be especially interested in the Q&A we did on Monday[1] after our launch got quite a bit of attention here on HN.[2] [0] link [1] this video [2] link
Cites itbcantrillJul 2023
“I likened us to the AS/400 in a VC pitch[0]”
Author's own VC pitch analogy to AS/400
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Yes! There are lots of ways in which we are nothing like these big IBM systems (we are, for example, entirely open -- like POWER, but very unlike AS/400 or Z series machines), but we definitely admire the robustness of these machines! Indeed, arguably to a fault, as I likened us to the AS/400 in a VC pitch[0] -- which (despite the potential accuracy of the historical analogue) is as ill-advised as it sounds... [0] this video
Cites itbcantrillJul 2023
“it was certainly not the foregone conclusion that you might expect![0]”
Background on the choice of illumos
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Not unrelated, of course -- but it was certainly not the foregone conclusion that you might expect![0] [0] this video
Cites itbcantrillJan 2024
“we expanded on this a bit in our Q&A when we shipped our first rack[1]”
Q&A explaining why an illumos derivative was chosen
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Keep in mind that Helios is really just an implementation detail of the rack; like Hubris[0], it's not something visible to the user or to applications. (The user of the rack provisions VMs.) As for why an illumos derivative and not something else, we expanded on this a bit in our Q&A when we shipped our first rack[1] -- and we will expand on it again in the (recorded) discussion that we will have later today.[2] [0] link [1] this video [2] link
Cites itubedanAug 2025
“They published their reasoning for choosing illumos here”
Oxide's reasoning for choosing illumos
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"There’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. ... Now, mostly dead is slightly alive. Now, all dead…well, with all dead, there’s usually only one thing that you can do." I personally believe that illumos will survive for decades, and it very well could rise again for those users that want/need robust stability. One particularly notable design win was Oxide Computer Company as their hypervisor. They published their reasoning for choosing illumos here: linkthis video
