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    SubjectRe: proper place to discuss kernel 'bloatedness'?
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    In <36B47C02.6E09F73C@sire.ddns.org> Robert Wuest <rwuest@sire.ddns.org> writes:
    > Chip Salzenberg wrote:
    > > Well, actually, it is. Anyone who can afford any computer at all
    > > can afford a few gigabytes these days.
    >
    > That's not necessarily true. I work with a bunch of guys who make very
    > little money and are always scrounging parts to enhance their machines.
    > $200 for a disk drive is two weeks salary.
    >
    > [ ... ] but keeping it as small as possible is very __important__ for
    > Linux's expansion onto the desktop in developing nations and hence,
    > important for developers to keep in mind. Just a thought.

    If the size of the kernel and the resources consumed by the OS is
    really *that* important, might I suggest using something line Minix?
    The author of Minix didn't make the mistakes that Linus made and kept
    out a huge amount of needless bloat from becoming part of the standard
    OS. I believe that Minix still runs on an 8086 with two floppies.
    Minix, like WinNT, also uses a microkernel, which is a modern OS
    design technique, rather than the 1950ish kernel that Linus built.


    Oh, uhm, I guess I should put a :-> in here somewhere...


    Seriously though, unlike Minix, Linux was never intended to be the
    "smallest useful OS", rather, it is "what Linus wants it to be". I
    really doubt that you will be able to convince him that the size of
    Linux is a real problem, or that it is headed in the wrong direction.
    I really like the glee that Linus shows when he gets a patch that
    *removes* large amounts of code. It is obvious that he wants to keep
    Linux lean and mean, but that doesn't mean it should be tiny.


    I also respect Andy Tannenbaum for knowing what he wanted his OS to be,
    and that was to be a very minimalistic OS which could be run on really
    cheap hardware and small enough that comp sci students could
    understand it in a semester class. He might have said a few things
    that he may now regret, but I doubt that he regrets the direction he
    kept Minix going in.


    -wayne


    --
    Wayne Schlitt can not assert the truth of all statements in this
    article and still be consistent.

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