Re: LINUX is obsolete
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Re: LINUX is obsolete
In article <1992Feb3.051258.4153@menudo.uh.edu> kevin@taronga.taronga.com (Kevin Brown) writes:
>Dr. Tanenbaum claims that the microkernel architecture is the way to go.
>He has a great deal more experience with operating systems than I have.
>It's an understatement that it's likely that there's some substance to
>his statement. :-)
I tend to prefer seeing for myself rather than accepting "expert" opinion.
Microkernels are nice asthetically, but there are times when practical issues
must also be considered :)
>w3So from my point of view, the architecture of Minix is not ideal. While
>it may win in that it's a "microkernel" architecture, the division of
>functionality is not entirely to my liking. As is undoubtedly plainly
>obvious by now. :-)
I've been told by people who have used both that Linux is significantly
faster. There are certainly several factors involved (certainly using 32 bits
helps alot), but the multithreading also makes for much lower overhead.
>However, as a *multiuser* operating system, ~ri.e. an operating system designed
>to efficiently meet the needs of multiple users simultaneously while also
>performing batch operations, Minix is lacking, as far as I'm concerned.
>The main reason, of course, is the single-threaded file system (hereafter,
>STFS). Now, Dr. Tanenbaum may feel that a multi-threaded file system
>(hereafter, MTFS) is merely a performance hack.
I think this is a very valid problem. There are two ways a single threaded FS
could work and both have substantial problems. If the FS blocks while waiting
for I/O it would be completely unusable for "real" work. Imagine several users
accessing a database, if the FS blocks for I/O they will have to wait
eventhough the data they are looking for is already in the cache. If it is
designed to be non blocking then it is even more complicated than a
multithreaded FS and will have more overhead. I hope it is atleast the second
>However much Minix may be lacking from my standpoint, it is nevertheless
>a very useful and welcome enhancement to my system. In spite of the
>impression that I may have given everyone in my last posting, there will
>always be a soft spot in my heart for it, if only because it's the first
>decent operating system I've had on my system that I've had source to.
>I don't have to tell you people how incredibly useful it is to have source.
>You already know.
I will agree here, Minix is infinitly better than Messy-Loss :)
>Given the reasons Linus wrote Linux, I think it's hard for anyone to fault
>him for writing it the way he did. And he was extremely nice in making
>his code freely available to the rest of the world. It's not something he
>had to do. In my book, that makes him almost beyond reproach.
I think more effort has been put into making practical use of Linux possible.
An educational OS is nice, but there is a world outside of colleges that
is suffering from the lack of cheap and useful OS's, I've been stuck doing
most consulting work in Messy Loss because customers don't want to fork out
$1000 for UNIX.
>Dr. Tanenbaum didn't make Minix free. His goals were different. Minix
>is a teaching aid above all else (unless Dr. Tanenbaum has changed his
>views about Minix :-). That means that he must be concerned with the
>most efficient way to get Minix to the student population. At the time
>Minix was released, Prentice-Hall was a good solution, and has been for
>some time. However, I must wonder whether or not this is still the case.
>Dr. Tanenbaum: do you still feel that free distribution of Minix via the
>net is not the best way to distribute Minix?
I would guess that Prentice-Hall would have some objections :)
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