[dba-Tech] The latest Debian

Hi Shamil,

The Linux kernel isn't based on Minix sources or any other source. Linus
Torvalds wrote Linux from scratch and, as it developed into an operating
system, he continued with it simply because there were no freely available
kernels that supported the 32bit architecture - which is what he wanted.

"*He *[Linus]* has stated that if either the GNU or 386BSD kernels were
available at the time, he likely would not have written his own*" (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux ).

In fact, Linux was originally conceived by Linus to be a terminal emulator
and not an operating system.

"*In 1991, in Helsinki, Linus Torvalds began a project that later became
the Linux kernel. It was initially a terminal emulator, which Torvalds used
to access the large UNIX servers of the university. He wrote the program
specifically for the hardware he was using and independent of an operating
system because he wanted to use the functions of his new PC with an 80386
processor*" (same source as above)

In any event, Linux happens to be a lot more stable because it builds on
top of the original philosophies of Unix. Unix was simply just a better
conceived operating system than Windows was. The fact that Windows
succeeded and we have been living in an Windows dominated world until
recently has little to do with whether Windows is more stable or a better
platform, but has more to do with that Windows was designed to be
consumer-friendly compared to Unix (which wasn't at all consumer friendly
at the time), while also being cheaper than an Apple computer. It also
didn't help that all the different Unix vendors at the time were at war and
completely at odds about anything and everything - X Windows (the GUI)
included - and therefore were not focusing on the computer revolution,
because they didn't anticipate the moment when PCs would suddenly become
cheap enough that everyone would eventually have one in their homes.

That's not to say that Linux is perfect. In fact, I would argue that its
monolithic kernel is purely pragmatic but not ideal and can suffer from the
same flaws that Windows has of badly written drivers being able to crash
your machine. The approach of a microkernel architecture avoids this, but
it was not considered feasible at the time. But this effect is minimized by
the open source and transparent nature of the Linux project.

But, nevertheless, Linux and Unix machines in general are just more stable.
Take this as an example (Solaris Unix):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAUvfqLEWuA That server had an uptime of
3737 days before it was switched off... 10+ years. :)

- Hans


On 13 May 2013 13:43, Salakhetdinov Shamil <mcp2004 at mail.ru> wrote:

> Hi Hans •-
>
> Thank you for your reference on Linux history.
>
> <<So what are we really arguing about here?>>
> I personally not arguing but expressing opinion on Jim's (rhetoric)
> question how it happened that Linux is a more stable OS than MS Windows.
> And the fact that Linux kernel was based on Minix sources and not on (GNU)
> Unix ones doesn't matter that much.
>
> Thank you.
> --Shamil
>
> Воскресенье, 12 мая 2013, 15:13 -07:00 от Hans-Christian Andersen <
> hans.andersen at phulse.com>:
> > Hi Shamil,
> >
> > > please correct me if I'm wrong  but Linux core was based on Unix
> sources
> >
> > No. Linux is the kernel of the operating system. It was built from
> scratch,
> > with only Minix, a bare-bones operating system meant for educational
> purposes
> > by a university professor, as inspiration. Linux was not built upon
> freely
> > available code or anything of that sort. Here is a breakdown of the
> history of
> > Linux: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux
> >
> > Perhaps you are thinking of the GNU Project, which attempted to create a
> > standardised Unix platform. This is not Linux, but is still like the bash
> > command line environment and all the basic command line tools, like
> 'echo',
> > 'cat', 'touch', etc etc. You find this on pretty much every Unix
> operating
> > system out there, Apple OS X included.
> >
> > > A lot of academic and industrial research was done before Linux
> inherited it
> > "for granted" in 1991
> >
> > Microsoft Windows also benefitted heavily from many many years of
> research and
> > development at academic universities - foundational things that were
> developed
> > before Windows or DOS existed and Microsoft also hiring researchers and
> > academics right out of university. I don't see the difference.
> >
> > Plus, Microsoft "benefitted" from their relationship with IBM while
> developing
> > OS/2, before parting ways and "inheriting" Windows. Microsoft has done a
> lot
> > of "inheriting" in their history... going as far back as the origins of
> > MS-DOS.
> >
> > So what are we really arguing about here?
> >
> > - Hans
> >
> >
>