[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: Windows vs. Linux



On Fri, 1 Feb 2002 13:21:24 -0500 Noah Meyerhans <noahm@debian.org> wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 12:01:50PM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote:
> > > AFAICT, Linux grew out of need for an _affordable_ and free POSIX kernel
> > > so that you don't have to spend billions just to run UNIX like
> > > OS.
> > 
> > It grew out of one man's University homework, and dissatisfaction
> > with Minix (a tiny, "teaching" clone of Unix written by Linus'
> > Univerity Professor Andrew Tannenbaum.  
> 
> No, Tanenbaum was never Linus' professor.  Tanenbaum teaches in the
> Netherlands, Linus was a student in Finland.  During the famous
> Linus/Tanenbaum debates of 10 years or so ago, Tanenbaum said that if
> Linux had been written for one of his OS classes, it would have received
> a failing grade (due to its monolithic kernel architecture).  

Thanks for the correction.

> You can find the Tanenbaum/Torvalds debates at
> http://www.dina.dk/~abraham/Linus_vs_Tanenbaum.html
> 
> One interesting thing about them is that fairly early on, Tanenbaum
> criticises Linux for being closely tied to the Intel architecture.  I
> find that a bit amusing, since I'm running Linux on SPARCs, PowerPCs,
> MIPSes, and ARMs.  8^)

Back in the beginning, it _was_ closely tied to the i386.  It was the
Alpha port which convinced Linus to change that.

-- 
+------------------------------------------------------------+
| Ron Johnson, Jr.        Home: ron.l.johnson@cox.net        |
| Jefferson, LA  USA      http://ronandheather.dhs.org:81    |
|                                                            |
! Great Inventors of our time:                               |
!    Al Gore -> Internet                                     |
!    Sun Microsystems -> Clusters                            |
+------------------------------------------------------------+



Reply to: