Messages in this thread | | | Date | Mon, 1 Feb 1999 23:44:06 -0500 (EST) | From | Kenneth Albanowski <> | Subject | Re: proper place to discuss kernel 'bloatedness'? |
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On Tue, 2 Feb 1999, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 01, 1999 at 01:44:55AM +0100, Marek Habersack wrote: > > And where would you split the kernel? What makes a linux machine a server is > > not the kernel, but the various daemons SERVING some kind of service. The > > kernel "merely" provides a medium for those daemons - networking, file > > systems, access to hardware etc. > > As a gross generalisation in the PC world: > > The computers with all kinds of funky SCSI controllers and network > settings and no `multimedia' drivers are `servers'. > > The computers with IDE, sound cards, maybe TV and radio cards too, > and quite simple network setup are `workstations'. > > It would be short-sighted to set these generalisations about drivers > `in stone', though.
I think the key idea here is that a "server" spends most of its time talking to other computers, and various perpipherals, while a "workstation" spends most of its time talking to humans. (Both can be high-bandwidth, high-computation tasks, these days.)
Unfortunately, any long term difference between the two seems to be minimal -- as Microsoft demonstrates quite nicely by shipping NT "workstation" and NT "server", which are identical except for some tuning parameters and the bundled doodads and daemons.
-- Kenneth Albanowski (kjahds@kjahds.com, CIS: 70705,126)
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