From: f6930910@scheme.cs.ubc.ca Subject: Re: Linux CDROM (Was stabilizing Linux) Date: Sun, 9 Aug 1992 00:34:22 GMT
eric@tantalus.dell.com (Eric Youngdale) writes:
| To me this sounds like an excellent opportunity to get our collective
|acts together and get a 1.0 release out the door. About a month ago, I asked
|the question "What is left to be done for 1.0", and we got a fairly spirited
|discsussion going. There were a couple of major points, and an abbreviated
|list was:
|
| (1) The new extfs being considered well-tested and no known bugs.
| (2) Sharable libraries that are downward compatible(jump tables).
| (3) dosfs being reliable enough to be considered well tested .
| (4) All kernel/library hooks required for TCP/IP. (post 1.0??).
| (5) Filesystem with larger block sizes (4Kb).
| (6) An isofs to read the ISO9660 CD-ROM format.
| (7) Some kind of logo to print on the cdrom disc :-)
|....
|--
|Eric Youngdale
|eric@tantalus.nrl.navy.mil
Firstly, I continue to be amazed at Linux's functionality. Compiling
the kernel while playing xtetris, all on freely distributable software
is almost unbelievable. I followed this thread the last time it came around,
and will say again what I said then. Linux has a lot further to go than
this list to be an operating system. A kernel does not an operating
system make.
Linux needs a single, complete SOURCE TREE that we can point at and
say "That's Linux". The MCC interim release was called 'interim'
for a reason. I think it is great that there are lots of functional
systems floating around, but that isn't an operating system. That
is a kernel with lots 'o software scattered about. I don't think that
a snapshot of tsx-11 constitutes an operating system.
To become an operating system, Linux needs to look like Berkeley's
Net-2 tapes, or the USL source tree, or the VMS source tree, or
any other complete system. This will be a major undertaking
(seeing to it that there are manuals for everything would alone
be a major undertaking).
The Linux kernel is the most amazing peice of software I have
ever witnessed -- but it is not an operating system.
Just my $0.02.
- Ken