Re: Are you looking for a new Operating System
- From: Aragorn <stryder@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2006 14:02:14 GMT
On Saturday 28 January 2006 13:53, Simon Brooke stood up and spoke the
following words to the masses in /comp.os.linux.misc...:/
> [...]
> Building a new operating system that is at all interesting is a very,
> very big task. Building a new UN*X-like operating system kernel which
> allows you to use the wide range of existing open source software for
> UN*X-like operating systems is possible, but it's been done (Linux,
> Minix and others) and is unlikely to offer users anything radically
> new. But it's worth pointing out that GNU Hurd has been being
> developed by a large team of very talented people for getting on for
> twenty years now, and it still doesn't work well enough for
> non-hackers to use it.
> [...]
Actually, The only difference between GNU/Hurd and GNU/Linux is the
kernel. Linux is not an operating system - despite what the majority
of people claim, including Linus Torvalds - but an operating system
*kernel.*
The source code for the GNU/Linux operating system minus the Linux
kernel is identical to the source code for native GNU. The major
difference between the two is that Linux is a monolithic kernel design,
while Richard Stallman wanted GNU to feature the Mach microkernel with
the Hurd userspace serverset.
It is the latter that is still under development and has yet to become
production-ready. My guess is that the Free Software developers
working on the Hurd are actually not all too motivated anymore, as they
have in fact reached their objective by the coupling of GNU to the
Linux kernel. This coupling was however not done by the FSF itself,
but rather by Linus Torvalds and the kernel development team, who used
GNU in the creation of Linux.
Linux is a fully functional kernel and it is released under the GPL -
albeit that this was not the case from the beginning. So a Free
operating system was created - and that was the FSF's intention - and
has proven to be both highly stable and highly successful - albeit that
the Windows advocates keep denying this, and silently wish that it
weren't true. ;-)
I strongly suspect that the success of GNU/Linux has somewhat robbed the
FSF developers of the incentive to still make the Mach/Hurd set work.
;-)
--
With kind regards,
*Aragorn*
(Registered GNU/Linux user #223157)
.
- References:
- Are you looking for a new Operating System
- From: rstamps
- Re: Are you looking for a new Operating System
- From: Grant Edwards
- Re: Are you looking for a new Operating System
- From: rstamps@xxxxxxxxx
- Re: Are you looking for a new Operating System
- From: Simon Brooke
- Are you looking for a new Operating System
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