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From: Steve Shack <sshack@cln.etc.bc.ca>
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Subject: Re: LINUX !
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Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 00:37:53 GMT
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Mike Cheponis wrote:
> 
> Steve Shack wrote:
> 
> > >Or open bsd? or freebsd? They're each best suited to slightly different
> > >tasks. I won't argue with your choice because you seem rather adminent
> > >about it.
> 
> For learning, Minix has no equal.  Please, if you don't have it, immediately go to
> Amazon and buy the second edition of "Operating Systems, Design and
> Implementation" by Andrew S. Tanenbaum and Albert S. Woodhull.  This book
> describes Minix 2.0, as well as OS concepts in general.
I plan to buy this book as soon as I can find a local bookstore who can
get it for me. (I'd rather support a local company.) But I have been
using minix for quite some time. about  years now. Just to learn some os
design. 


Your point about Linux being a copycat OS could be true. Myself I work
with NT and Linux (mostly linux though) and I can honestly say both of
them have copied ideas from many places. One thing I don't understand is
why an argument can take place of linux vs nt or even minix vs linux
each of these os's have a different pourpose in life. it's essentialy a
non-issue. If people would learn what each is for none of these
discussions would never take place. for example are you going to stick
minix on a desktop for a secretary? No it's for the students. Would you
stick linux on the desktop of a graphic designer? Hell no he needs NT
and photoshop. Same for 3d stuff. and would I stick NT in as a server?
For some situations such as a school/businesses fileserver yes I would.
But for a sql server or render farm? No I wouldn't dare do that. 


 
> 
> I don't have as much experience with FreeBSD or the other one you mentioned, but I
> do have a lot of experience with BSDI and NetBSD.  I prefer BSDI, but it costs
> money, and NetBSD is certainly robust and stable, especially compared with the OS
> that was written by that student who would have gotten an "F" in Andy's class.
> 
> >
> > >Untill recently I was working with a company who had the need for data
> > >entry in the field. NT just simply can't do this. You can't have
> > >terminals attached to one system and have 50+ users at once banging away
> > >enteries for a database especialy in a mission critical envornment where
> > >if the system fails you've lost 10K
> 
> The original point was that, somehow, the OS that was written by the student was
> causing delays in Microsoft releasing W2K; that is not true.
> 
> I am not certain how pointing out that NT is not applicable in all uses is
> relevant to this point?  NT is not relevant to all uses, nor is any OS of which I
> am aware; that's one reason we have a panoply of choice in OSs.
> 
> > > >If you want a hobby OS, written by amateurs, for amateurs, then, by all
> > > >means, get Linux.
> 
> > >You also consider donald becker  who works at cesdis (nasa) an amature?
> > >Wow. Your standards are much higher that the %100 of the rest of the
> > >computer industy. NT, linux, *bsd, others are each suited to different
> > >things. They do those things well. To say that linux is outright a joke
> > >is just foolish.
> 
> I don't want to dis donald becker, but he wrote a flame on his site about how
> awful the IrDA protocols were, and how they just couldn't be reliably implemented,
> etc.  Then Dag Brattli came along and dropped IrDA support into that OS that was
> written by the student.
> 
> I suspect that I, coming from MIT where programming correctness and actual
> -design- of systems is paramount, and the fact that I -read- a lot of code, makes
> me a stickler for things that should be "done right".  The OS that was written by
> the student isn't such a project.
> 
> I suspect you haven't actually -read- much code in the OS (not the drivers, like
> becker's) of that OS written by the student. Perhaps that explains your position?
> Or maybe have you don't understand the architecture of the OS written by the
> student?
Does porting a large database system coded in basic for iris systems to
linux/C++ count as very little reading? I'll be the first to complain
that something is a kludge but unfortunatly in the real world I have to
go with what works often times when i'm very close  getting a much
cleaner idea into the system. 

What I was trying to get at in my post was that virtualy every operating
system is a kludge in some way, shape or form. There is no utopia
operating system. 
> 
> I also encourage you to get a copy of "The Unix Hater's Handbook" which,
> unfortunately, is now out of print, but perhaps a friend or a local library has a
> copy.  I especially liked the "UNIX Barf Bag" that came with the book.  Until unix
> users realize what a crock unix really is, I don't think we're going to see real
> innovation in OS design.
> 
> Very best regards -Mike
