Re: [OT I think] Which Distro?
On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 03:20:04PM -0800, Jimmy Johnson wrote:
> Johannes Wiedersich wrote:
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>> Jimmy Johnson wrote:
>>> I imagine the arguments where similar when operating systems moved from
>>> 16 bit to 32 bit. ;)
>>
>> I have never heard of 16 bit userland and a 32 bit kernel, though. In
>> the present case in a sense you can have the best of both worlds on one
>> system. 8-)
>>
>> Has there ever been an official 16 bit linux kernel?
Not official. An attempted port:
http://elks.sourceforge.net/
But nobody uses it noawaday.
See also http://mikeos.berlios.de/ . Loyal to the BSD tradition it
already has a fork.
>
> I could be wrong but I think the closest would be Minix '87 running on
> 8086, Linus was not doing his thing until '91 or maybe later, he may
> have started on a 8086, not sure.
Linux is not based on Minix.
Linus got a shiny new 386 computer and wanted a decent OS on it. One
that could use the 32 bit and memory protection capabilities of that
CPU, something Minix never bothered.
So he just wrote his own kernel.
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