From: gt8134b@prism.gatech.EDU (Howlin' Bob) Subject: Re: NT vs Linux (was: Re: truth or dare) Date: 8 Jul 1993 05:57:28 GMT
In <1993Jul8.041711.24937@muug.mb.ca> rgallen@muug.mb.ca (Rennie Allen) writes:
>arena a bit here), I must say that I would question the quality of Linux
>myself. I haven't used it but I am familiar with it's basic design and I
>must say it's no screaming hell. Linux is a monolithic kernel essentially
Er, I suppose not. Is "screaming hell" good or bad? On this side of the
border, we consider hell a generally unpleasant place.
>no different from the OS's of the early 70's. UNIX's excuse is that it was
>developed in the early 70's; what's Linuxs' ?
... that the UNIX design withstood the test of time and a lot of
quality software has been written for UNIX? That nothing to yet come
out of Microsoft's "screaming hell" has put UNIX in its place?
>There is more to quality software than code that will pass through lint
>without a burp. There is *design*. Linux has no *design* it is simply a
>clone of what has gone before, it does nothing to advance the state of the
>art in OS design. If the Linuxs' of the world become popular, that will be
>a sad day indeed.
Spoken like a person who has neither used nor seen Linux code.
There is more to design than buzzwords like "microkernel" and a pretty
windowing face. Linux works very differently from the 1970's UNIX.
If you want V7 UNIX, use Coherent. Linux is a modern version, which
is no slack think to be.
Come on, Windows NT *still* won't be multi-user, and it's
state-of-the-art 1990's *design*.
>I think that the GNU utilities are indispensable, important pieces of
>quality software, however, these are totally different beasts than an OS. An
>OS is a large and complex piece of software, and the elegance of the
The Linux kernel isn't as large as BASH, nor half as large as EMACS.
But if you mean the OS is all the things that come on the distribution
disks, that's a different story.
>architecture of the OS has a profound impact on the functionality of the
>resulting application/s of that OS.
Really? Most people claim that the most usable software runs on
DOS and/or Windows, which is certainly about as far from elegant as you
can get in this world. Just a peripheral point...
>I have never had any problem with people using Linux to further their
>understanding of OS basics, or to hone their coding skills by working on it,
>but to suggest that it be a replacement for a well though out architecturaly
>engineered operating system is well; pushing it a little to far.
Okay, but when some well thought-out system like NT won't run worth
diddly-squat on my 8MB-RAM 110MB-disk 486/33, and Linux runs like
a bat out of hell, one tends to wonder just when the benefits of
all NT's supposed architectural engineering will come in.
Just because NT is bulky, slow, overhyped, overpriced, and late
doesn't mean it's well-designed. It just means it's bulky, slow,
overhyped, overpriced, and late.
My OS can beat up your OS and that's that.
--
Robert Sanders
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
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