Re: Debian/GNU Freebsd
On Thu, 18 Feb, 1999, Martin Schulze wrote:
> The people who use FreeBSD for some reason but like the Debian system.
> (Debian system contrary to Linux kernel). However I don't know how
> many these are. How many people will use Debian GNU/Hurd when it
> will be releaased in a year?
If it had the drivers I needed I would run it. As Andy Tanenbaum
(ast@cs.vu.nl) author of MINIX said in early 1992 - LINUX is obsolete.
It is a monolithic kernel you have to reboot every time you change a small
part of it, say to correct a DOS in the tcp/ip stack.
On 29 Jan, 1992, Andy Tanenbaum wrote:
>1. MICROKERNEL VS MONOLITHIC SYSTEM
> While I could go into a long story here about the relative merits of the
> two designs, suffice it to say that among the people who actually design
> operating systems, the debate is essentially over. Microkernels have won.
> The only real argument for monolithic systems was performance, and there
> is now enough evidence showing that microkernel systems can be just as
> fast as monolithic systems (e.g., Rick Rashid has published papers comparing
> Mach 3.0 to monolithic systems) that it is now all over but the shoutin`.
> MINIX is a microkernel-based system. The file system and memory management
> are separate processes, running outside the kernel. The I/O drivers are
> also separate processes (in the kernel, but only because the brain-dead
> nature of the Intel CPUs makes that difficult to do otherwise). LINUX is
> a monolithic style system. This is a giant step back into the 1970s.
> That is like taking an existing, working C program and rewriting it in
> BASIC. To me, writing a monolithic system in 1991 is a truly poor idea.
Tanenbaum goes on to moan about how unportabile Linux is ;-)
Hang on I just spotted another quote I must include:
> 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.
If he had left out the SPARC bit he would have been about right.
If you go to http://www.gnu.org/hurd/ there are some more reasons why Hurd is
better than Linux.
On another thought why not run both? Yes that is right Hurd is actually
Hurd/Mach because it uses the Mach microkernel and Hurd is all the unix like
daemons on top. We could make that Hurd/Linux by striping Linux down to a bare
microkernel.
Think of the choice Debian GNU/Linux, GNU/FreeBSD, GNU/NetBSD, GNU/Hurd/Mach
GNU/Hurd/Linux, GNU/Hurd/FreeBSD, GNU/Hurd/NetBSD. And if we can get them all
to have similar system calls and run elf then the binaries will be compaitable
for systems with the same chip. You could install Debian GNU/Linux and then
change your mind and do apt-get install hurd-mach or apt-get install freebsd
and Debian will changes its kernel in front of your eyes. (apt-get install
win32 ????)
--
GNU does not eliminate all the world's problems, only some of them.
-- The GNU Manifesto
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