Re: LINUX is obsolete
[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]
Re: LINUX is obsolete
In article <12615@star.cs.vu.nl> ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) writes:
>In article <1992Jan29.231426.20469@klaava.Helsinki.FI> torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds) writes:
>Of course 5 years from now that will be different, but 5 years from now
>everyone will be running free GNU on their 200 MIPS, 64M SPARCstation-5.
Well, I for one would _love_ to see this happen.
>>The fact is that linux is more portable than minix. What? I hear you
>>say. It's true - but not in the sense that ast means: I made linux as
>>conformant to standards as I knew how (without having any POSIX standard
>>in front of me). Porting things to linux is generally /much/ easier
>>than porting them to minix.
.........
>My point is that writing a new operating system that is closely tied to any
>particular piece of hardware, especially a weird one like the Intel line,
>is basically wrong.
First off, the parts of Linux tuned most finely to the 80x86 are the Kernel
and the devices. My own sense is that even if Linux is simply a stopgap
measure to let us all run GNU software, it is still worthwhile to have a
a finely tuned kernel for the most numerous architecture presently in
existance.
> An OS itself should be easily portable to new hardware
>platforms.
Well, the only part of Linux that isn't portable is the kernel and drivers.
Compare to the compilers, utilities, windowing system etc. this is really
a small part of the effort. Since Linux has a large degree of call
compatibility with portable OS's I wouldn't complain. I'm personally
very grateful to have an OS that makes it more likely that some of us will
be able to take advantage of the software that has come out of Berkeley,
FSF, CMU etc. It may well be that in 2-3 years when ultra cheap BSD
variants and Hurd proliferate, that Linux will be obsolete. Still, right
now Linux greatly reduces the cost of using tools like gcc, bison, bash
which are useful in the development of such an OS.