Thompson Critical of Linux 461
Shuga-Buga writes "Ken Thompson, father of Unix,
has some critical things to say about Linux. Otherwise an interesting article. "
(CT:Sorry about the unsteady posting. Hemos is on vacation,
and I'm moving so things are really crazy right now)
Plan 9 (Score:1)
Well, compared to Plan 9, Linux is a joke. So I think he's right to criticize. Can we rise to the challenge and show him the power of Open Source (tm)?
Microsoft is really unreliable, but Linux is worse (Score:1)
Ken Thompson father of Unix
He has a point you know (Score:1)
Dont get me wrong, I personally use linux at home and as a desktop OS, the variety of good software from the bandwaggon jumpers and hardware support is great. I still boot into 95 to play games.
However when it comes down to setting up a server, the only real choices available are one of the *bsd's or solaris because they are clean, tidy and stable
Slide
Duplicating the Plan 9 API in Linux? (Score:1)
Would POSIX compliant applications run on top of Plan 9?
Sorry for this public display of ignorance, I'm just wondering what the fuss about Plan 9 is.
Re:Linux criticism and audio coding (Score:1)
I run Linux not because it's not MS... (Score:1)
Er. Where was I?
Oh yes...
If Microsoft came up with something tomorrow that was more stable, open, flexible and comfortable as Linux, hell yes I would use it. But they won't. They can't. It's just not in their corporate mind space. It would be like asking a dog to grow an opposable thumb.
Yes, Linux can be improved. More importantly, it is being improved. Maybe one day something better will come along. I'm betting that when it does, it comes from the open source community and it will blow everything else out of the water.
Slashdot does it again... (Score:1)
Slashdot is _not_ news for nerds, for that to be the case, it would need to be unbiased. He does in fact say that. So what? 1 comment out of many, many others. It is very interesting reading and there are far more important things in there than his personal opinion (can you blame him?) about Linux.
Can we please have some unbiased properly checked articles here? How about an option for users to choose "Show stuff that is inflamatory and may not be true" so I can turn it off and not waste my time?
D. Jeff Dionne.
WHOA! Mine, too! (Score:1)
it's true: Linux did kill my dog.
Jesus, I didn't know there were so many of us! We should form a support group. Slashdog. Or something.
Did it like eat the remains, or just absorb them with a horrible, vile schlupppping sound, like the Prince of Austria's fallen piles getting wrapped around the rear axle of his Hispano-Suiza? OOOOg, creepy, I hate when that happens. Remember The Thing with Kurt Russell? IIRC there was an earlier movie of that back in the fifties . . . cool flick . . . Linux is just like that, what it did to my dog and all, and then my neighbors. It's from a short novel by John W. Campbell, called Who Goes There? Cool book if you can find it. Most of what Cambpell wrote was tripe but that was a winner. Oh, God, my poor dog! ABSORBED!
Re:Linux More Unreliable than M$? (Score:1)
For example, if a module kernel driver gets hung up, things are pretty much awol until reboot, even though you didn't fully crash.
Meanwhile, NT may have shoddy code, but on paper, NT might not necessarily suffer such things.
His comments were theoretical.
Just wondering (Score:1)
Just wondering.
Re: remember Ezra Pound (Score:1)
Linux ain't unix, though it learned a lot from unix. The goal of
commercial companies which have been behind unix is now a kind
total control of systems at all levels using Java which is
opposed to free software and diversity in the strongest possible
way. This will stifle creativity and innovation at all levels.
Linux and free software offer some hope that computing will
remain in some way "personal" and thrive in a networked
environment in which diversity is rewarded - and in which
integration is achieved through open standards and data formats
rather than brokered and rented "objects" whether they be
Corba, ActiveX, or Java Beans. Not that these technologies
are not useful in some ways, but corporations with an interest in
mandating them are the common enemy of Linux and free
software.
However, it will not be possible to cut the cord until a certain
critical mass is reached, where Linux has more non-sysadmin
users than sysadmin-users. So long as most Linux users work
as a living as sysadmins (which they now do) they will want to
keep Linux as much like unix as possible for their job security.
Non-sysadmin users aren't stupid, and sysadmin users often
don't have the best interest of Linux in mind, only their careers.
Regarding Ken Thompson, remember Ezra Pound, a great man
who, motivated by envy and other personal issues made some
statements he later came to regret during WWII. I think it's
time for Ken to get some counseling because obviously he is
not stupid, but such statements as he makes puiblicly about
Linux are, to put it bluntly, insane. Plan 9 will go nowhere.
I think Ken is a little out of touch with reality in some ways.
All of us might be at times but he may later regret making these
statements which will embarrass him as a respected public figure
in academic and computing circles. People without such statue
making such statements are excused more readily.
Still, a very interesting and worthwhile interview.
Like poking a pig in the ass with a redhot poker. (Score:1)
As for the article itself, why aren't you looking at the useful insights he gives? Study and analyse his general philosophies (esp in regards to language/OS). Ignore what you disagree with and use to your own advantage what you do agree with. Its far more constructive than hooting like a bunch of monkeys in a zoo about how he doesn't like the same OS that you like.
Sorry wrong article (Score:1)
Linux and the Enterprise
by Mark Russinovich
http://www.winntmag.com/M agazine/Article.cfm?ArticleID=5048 [winntmag.com]
/.er's reaction (Score:1)
---
Yup. I would hate to see SplashSnotters running amok and filling Ken's
mailbox with (ahem) indignant (ahem) replies.
---
This guys is right if condescendant. Raise a bit our status as a community and don't do the obvious *Bad Thing*.
Not sour grapes, we are just comparing (Score:1)
Their philosophy is totally different.
The only thing that relate between linux and Ken Thompson, are C language, nothing more.
To Ken Thompson, Open source just an unimaginative beast to Ken Thompson. Ken Thompson is from the old corporate computer world, it take time for him to catch up the open source phenomena.
It is not suprise human being use their own perception for something they don't know. I bet Ken Thompson have try linux development kernel few "computing decade" ago. Maybe a 1.1.x kernel or older.
I bet Ken Thompson will drop his jaws when he see kernel 2.2
Compare to Unix, Linux evolution evolve beyond any Unix evolution rate. I think Linux evolve 2 to 4 times faster than commercial Unix system. The rapid evolve of Linux partly due to open source, and partly due to Internet.
Remember, Ken Thompson doesn't have Internet when he invent C.
Anyway, I just can't wait Kernighan Ritchie give his point of view on linux.
Re:Microsoft is really unreliable, but Linux is wo (Score:1)
They just run.
Linux unreliable? (Score:2)
I'm wondering when he tested Linux.
I've looked at the source and there are pieces that are good and pieces that are not.
Of course, but has he ever looked at the NT sources?
gene therapy/ molecular biology is not a good care (Score:2)
careers in biotech are for masochists. Just left a phD program in molecular toxicolgy to be a programmer, and a huge weight was lifted of my shoulders. 10 years plus graduate education and people still scramble to get a job. Unless you enjoy constantly justifying your existence to funding agenies/corporations etc avoid biological research as a career. does anyone here no any biotech consultants that make 100 dollars an hour. I know plenty of exrtremely talented people who had to spend 3-5 years in post doctoral positions making 27000 dollars a year in places like boston and newyork before that got their big break. in case anyones noticed that wont cut it in an expensive metro area. he should stick to commenting on unix.
So reverse-engineer Plan 9, too. (Score:2)
Or Inferno, or whatever. No biggie.
A lot of people (okay, some people) like to think that operating systems reached perfection with UNIX, as in "those who don't know UNIX are doomed to repeat it" and all that. But that's probably a crock, and these people probably are basing their view on having used Windows, DOS, Linux/UNIX, and probably a Mac or the BeOS. BFD! That's not "all operating systems". So UNIX is really cool, and Linux is a good implementation of it. Does that mean we have to stop here? Why?
If Linux clobbers Microsoft, it'll be nice that we've finally clawed our way back up to the 1970's, but wouldn't you like to start moving ahead for a change? If UNIX is not "obsolete", that's because there's been very little progress in commercial operating systems in the last 25 years.
UNIX was a freak. It did a whole lot of things right on the first try. What other software has has such a long useful life?[1] So okay, it's great. I like it too. It's not the whole world, though. How depressing if we have to pick some arbitrary point and sneer at further development. I'm not old enough to stop thinking and devote the rest of my life to reverse-engineering the classics.
[1] COBOL has been around longer than UNIX, but note that I said "useful" and "life". COBOL is doubly disqualified.
What about Dennis Ritchy? (Score:2)
Okay, sure lets look at those. I'm getting really sick of hearing the BSD vs Linux debate. Talk about sour grapes. I agree that BSD is more "pure" than Linux is. However, we're not comparing pedagrees at a dog show here, we're talking about functionality. BSD bigots think that somehow "make buildworld" makes the whole damn OS superior. I don't think so. It only has advantages on "stock" servers like mail, or dns servers. Have you ever tested the I/O throughput of BSD, Solaris x86, or BSDi against Linux? I have. I used the same Dell workstation to compile "ssh" and also to untar a 400mb file. In both tuned and untuned configurations on a PII 266Mhz, I found that in all cases Linux was faster; much faster (sometimes by 3x). Also 10 years of experiance with Unix machines and many platforms has lead me to believe that Linux not only has a better philosophy but also better performance. I still have some respect for *BSD because they have some very dedicated developers who do an excellent job, in some cases better than Linux (like NFS, or package management). However, overall I believe that Linux is superior.
I rarely see a Linux uptime greater than a month
Really? Maybe you don't know how to run a stable Linux box then. I've got machines with more than a year of uptime. My Samba fileserver has been up for 1 year 11 months today. Perhaps you should use better hardware.
On my Linux 2.2.x systems, it fails to properly unmount its drives.
Again maybe you don't know what you are doing. I've got more than 10 2.2 systems running and they ALL unmount their drives properly. On both the command line via umount and during shutdown.
I also enjoy it when it simply quits responding to IP packets for a while.
Really? when does it do this. I don't ever have this problem and we run some fairly high traffic servers. Can you describe a way to reproduce the buggy behavior? I didn't think so.
I never see BSD systems broken into. Really? Do you read BugTraq. There have been a whole slew of root exploits for NetBSD lately. I've seen one recently for OpenBSD too. Yesterday there were two separate remote lockup bugs in FreeBSD 3.1. I agree that BSD is generally stable and secure, however it isn't the end-all-be-all in compsec as the bigots would have everyone believe. Linux has it's share of security holes, but so does BSD. Linux also has some very nice security enhancements that BSD doesn't have. Non-executable stack patch for 2.0 kernels. Restricted links in temp directories. Restricted
BTW, ever notice that all the freely available BSD's use the ipfilter package? Compared to linux, ipfilter is very feature poor. Linux does everything ipfilter does (except 1:1 NAT without a patch) plus QoS, policy based routing, hardware switching, and premptive packet assembly (defragmenting during NAT). The BSD ipfilter package does none of those and even if it did; it's available on Linux too! So I don't see what the big deal is with BSD. It's a good OS but nothing to get bigoted on. Neither is Linux. I just try to keep my mind open to the best solution to a given problem. Sometimes it's BSD, but most of the time it's Linux. If something else comes along then I'll whore around with that too
BTW, why doesn't anyone mention Dennis Ritchy? He has said some good things about Linux. Also, he did a hell of a lot more work on AT&T Unix than Thompson did. He wrote the C compiler and put together most of the kernel. Thompson wrote the filesystem and text formatters.
This really isn't that surprising... (Score:2)
I'm not up on my Plan9, but I wouldn't doubt it's superior in many ways to _any_ Unix variant (at least with respect to elegance, stability, etc.). As such, it's not surprising that he isn't very familiar with the current state of the linux kernel.
Notice that, earlier in the article, he detailed some shortcomings of the Unix model. _That_ is what he's basing his opions on...they're certainly not representative of a thorough understanding of either WindowsXYZ or Linux.
As I recall, DOS _was_ pretty stable (if hopelessly wanting of basic OS functionality) when nobody had heard of Windows. Mr. Thompson's perspective regarding Linux may have been on target back in those days.
He's moved on and he may well come up with the next great OS concept. But it is a shame that someone with enough talent to identify problems in the linux kernel wouldn't offer their insight into it's shortcomings.
I still appreciate his contribution.
I am seriously thinking about leaving linux as wel (Score:2)
Good bye linux. It was nice knowing you.
A fair estimation . . . (Score:4)
Over twenty years ago, you developed an operating system that wasn't about politics, or ethics or morals or beating any big corporation; it was about building a better operating system. The reason it was open for all to modify? Because the company that payed you to do it was under a lot of anti-trust lawsuit pressure and had to do something to look good. Heck, you weren't fighting the big corportation, you were working for them!
So, here you are twenty years later, working on radically advanced systems with distributed everything (cpu, storage, etc) and trying to create another operating system that is better. Someone else comes along and basically reinvents what you did, only with more political motivations. Do you care? Are you jealous? Do you look at him and laugh?
Perhaps Thompson is being too critical and claiming that "it's all been done before". But maybe there's a good reason for that. The ideas are over twenty years old! They are damn good ideas, but maybe it's time to come up with some better ones of our own.
I know that a lot of this has already happened in Linux, and keeps happening everyday. But there is still that attachment that Linux has to the old UNIXes. I'm not talking about user interface, or even name. I'm talking about the principles that the system itself was built upon, and are continued to be developed under.
I like Linux. I like it a lot. Right now it's perfect for me because it is more secure, more reliable, and more flexible than any other OS I can get my hands on. But for how long? Nothing lasts forever, and every operating system has it's limits. All I'm saying is, maybe it's time Linux stopped standing in other OS'es shadows. Maybe it's time we ignored the hype and the media and start doing our own thing. Maybe it's time that Linux wasn't summarized as "a free UNIX clone for PC compatibles and . . . "
Or maybe it's time I got another OS . . .
"'Perfect' is the enemy of 'good'" -Linus Torvalds (Score:4)
Linus isn't out to make Linux perfect; he's trying to make it reasonably good. Given two ways of doing something, he is more likely to choose a simple, "obviously correct" way than he is to choose a more complex solution. Sounds a little like what my professors tell the classes--"make it work, then make it fast".
Thompson is trying for perfection. Perhaps he'll get closer to it than Linus, but he's obviously more likely to fail.
Linux is "behind" in terms of hardware support, application support, etc. because it is a redesign at least as much as it is a new design. Naturally it's quite boring to Ken Thompson, who participated in the original design. On the other hand, it's interesting to many free software developers since this is a chance to "do it the right way" instead of being chained to complex, overengineered implementations (not that we don't have any, but we're not chained to them).
BTW, (Free|Net|Open)BSD are much different, as they share the BSD 4.4-Lite codebase. I wonder how much original UNIX code was left in 4.4-Lite.
As for reliability, Linux's big reliability problems fall into three categories:
Also, this article was pretty despressing in one respect: through AT&T, Ken Thompson has, in effect, tied up his entire life in the big red ribbon of intellectual property. I wonder what other amazing things he has produced that never saw the light of day.
Tinkering (Score:1)
his own way of doing things when he critizices
Linux. He says he likes to build things from
bottom up, to tinker with it. Just how Linux came
to be. Then he goes on saying how things are
proven: Somebody is told he is wrong and should
go to hell, and then the person goes on and just
_does_ the thing.
Well, I guess Linux told Ken Thompson already he
is wrong and should go to hell. Now its up to him
to prove he is right...
No. (Score:1)
Bruce, this is not true. It's users who fit between some threshold of posting enough, yet not too much, who have lower user numbers, and positive alignment (average score of postings).
---
Another part that can shed some light (Score:4)
Thompson: Operating systems, in particular, have to carry so much baggage. Today, if you're going to do something that will have any impact, you have to compete with Microsoft, and to do that you have to carry the weight of all the browsers, Word, Office, and everything else. Even if you write a better operating system, nobody who actually uses computers today knows what an operating system interface is; their interface is the browser or Office.
You can have the best and most beautiful interface in the world and the most extensible operating system that ports to anything and then you have to port on top of it a thousand staff-years worth of applications that you can't obtain the source for. You have two choices: Go to Microsoft and ask for the source to Office to port to your operating system and they'll laugh at you; or get a user's manual and re-engineer the code and they'll sue you anyway. Basically, it'll never happen because the entry fee is too high.
Anything new will have to come along with the type of revolution that came along with Unix. Nothing was going to topple IBM until something came along that made them irrelevant. I'm sure they have the mainframe market locked up, but that's just irrelevant. And the same thing with Microsoft: Until something comes along that makes them irrelevant, the entry fee is too difficult and they won't be displaced.
In other words, he simply does not believe that anything short of completely new paradigm will replace Microsoft and Office. I can only interpret it as acknowledgement of Unix defeat at the market, so he definitely will see Linux as fighting the lost battle -- in his opinion it should be his battle, and it doesn't look nice for him that someone is still fighting it after he quit.
Yet it's a different battle. Plan9 and Inferno, while based on nice ideas, never were intended to be widely used -- it's the same elitism that managed to hurt *BSD developers recently. Regardless of what Ken Thompson thinks, Unix can compete in the area where Windows "won", and this direction is ortogonal to the development of plan9/inferno/...
Unix fathers can continue pure-research-oriented development and even switch to Windows for their everyday work, however I don't feel that it gives them right to dismiss the continuation of Unixlike OS development at the extent of denying its viability. Especially in the case when it is not true, and I believe that Ken Thompson bases his opinion on something other than facts.
Re:It's just sour grapes (Score:1)
Stratus (Score:1)
Moderators (Score:1)
Re:Linux More Unreliable than M$? (Score:1)
Re:Linux More Unreliable than M$? (Score:1)
Just noticed this little bit. "claims to know"? He wrote the damn thing, so I'm quite confident of his familiarity with it.
Re:PAC? (Score:1)
No, MP3 is anything from 1:1 (really really high bitrates) to 160:1 (8kbps) and more.
The point is that PAC has better sound quality at the same compression ratio - i.e. PAC compressed at a 10:1 ratio will sound better than MP3 compressed at a 10:1 ratio (which would make it superior, since you'd have to use 256kbps or so mp3s to make up for the quality difference, which would only give you 5:1 or so compression ratio).
Re:He has a point you know (Score:1)
That's why I think the 2.2.x release was somewhat premature. 2.0.36 was quite stable. 2.2.0 was not, yet it was labeled as "stable" anyway. This sets up an awkward position where your latest "stable" release is actually not as stable as advertised, and you end up having to recommend that people use the old release, which really is stable.
Re:Linux More Unreliable than M$? (Score:1)
Well, you'll notice that he specifically mentioned non-PC hardware. He didn't seem too worried about stability on PC hardware, but the lack thereof on non-PC hardware. I personally don't have enough familiarity with the Alpha, PPC, Sparc, etc., ports of Linux to say anything about them myself.
I can understand an *unqualified* rating of ``unreliable'', but when you say that it's worse than Microsoft, that is plain out to lunch, credentials or not. Linux is orders of magnitude more reliable than Microsoft's flagship operating system.
Well, again, I'd need more info before making a judgement. Perhaps in his experience NT Alpha is more stable then Linux on an Alpha, with whatever setup he happens to be using. I have no idea.
Re:I'll fire up my Plan9 rocketcar and go to the m (Score:1)
The same could be said of Linux, around five years ago.
I thought the Linux community was supposed to be about technical quality, not "critical mass" and marketshare and whatnot.
Critical mass, people.
In that case, based on my 1993 statistics, I'll continue using Windows forever, since this OS that has only a handful of college users could never possibly become a serious competitor.
Re:Linux More Unreliable than M$? (Score:1)
Linux is based on UNIX, and Thompson nearly single-handedly defined the basics of a UNIX system. Therefore, Linux is an OS that follows the design philosophy of Thompson, and as such, I'd consider him an excellent judge of implementations of his ideas.
He "looked at the code" and saw that some was good and some was bad and implying that because a lot of people had a hand in it that it isn't so good.
I would like to know the definition of "bad" in this case. Is he saying that the "bad" code doesn't work or does he know of a more efficient way to write it. Maybe it just was formatted poorly for all we know.
If the code _works_ but isn't as efficient as it could be does that make linux poor? Hardly.
Less efficient is definitely bad. It doesn't make it useless, it just makes it poorer than a solution that is more efficient. Plus, Thompson had problems with the stability of Linux, not just its efficiency. I know I personally have gotten it to crash at least six or seven times, and I've had to reset another 10-15 times when I accidentally cat a binary file to stdout and can't get the damn console fixed (even MS-DOS 1.0 can handle this properly - why can't Linux?).
All modern operating systems are written by many people. Some of those coders are better than others so I don't see the distinction with linux.
The proof is in the pudding. Linux works well for me, it works well for many 10s/100s of thousands of machines that he says linux is no good for.
Well, Windows works fine for millions of people, too, but that doesn't make it technically advanced. DOS worked fine for millions of people too.
Hmmm. Did his version of unix never crash and not have _any_ poor code in it? Did he write it *all* and did he write it alone? I have no idea but to just spout "He WROTE unix" is as vague as his comments.
He pretty much wrote it alone. I'm sure he had some help, and K&R (the C inventors), IIRC, ported it to C, but Thompson wrote an extremely large portion of it.
Re:He has a point you know (Score:1)
Re:It won't crash you moron (Score:1)
Re:He has a point you know (Score:1)
Re:2 alpha based sql server up for 2 years (Score:1)
Re:Linux code base too large (Score:1)
What you have to realise, of course, is that moving to microkernel would not eliminate code, simply modularise it - and Linux is already mostly modularised. Also, Linus and Alan Cox have a very good idea of what's going on in all areas of the kernel - ie, it hasn't gotten to large for them to manage it.
The fact is that moving Linux to a microkernel is a very non-trivial job, and wouldn't really pay off: it's quite portable and works just fine as it is.
Something just occurred to me: it has been ported to a microkernel - thus producing mklinux [apple.com].
Re:He has a point you know (Score:4)
Distributions focussing on ease-of-use? Isn't that kind of their point? Of course you can go out, hex-edit your kernel and boot directly off it, or bootstrap using loadlin or whatever. But the fact is that's non-trivial and for most people very hard. Making an easy installation, or at least one that allows you to not have to download everything, is what a distribution is all about.
As for bloatware, I haven't seen it. Unless you consider things like X, KDE and GNOME bloatware?
When it comes down to setting up a server you use what's right for the job. If that job is serving up .asp pages, you'll use Windows NT. If that job is doing Oracle, you'll probably choose Linux or Solaris. Saying that Linux is completely inappropriate for any server job is kind of like saying that BSD or Solaris is completely appropriate for every server job - ie, it's not true. I don't know about BSD or Solaris, but with most Unices on stable kernels, stability is more a function of hardware reliability and electricity than it is of software. I've heard all kinds of stuff about "[BSD,Solaris] is more stable and faster" but I've never, ever seen anything to back it up. Maybe this was true at one point, but I very much doubt it now.
Re:My guess would be YES (Score:1)
Glory? Emotional satisfaction? Practice?
...phil
Linux won't run more than a month? (Score:1)
Methinks the large number of testimonials of extensive Linux uptime means that xBSD advocates saying that Linux is "unreliable" are acting from jealousy over the popularity of Linux, rather than from a technical standpoint.
Biggest "X" flaw... (Score:2)
Of course GTK and QT are a reasonable response to that, and as GTK matures and QT becomes more politically acceptable, expect things to change rapidly...
Re:Linux is not ready as a gateway or firewall (Score:1)
Oh, install this new notepad replacement? You must reboot. Come on...
The Perl Connection (Score:2)
There are obviously too many features if you can do something that many ways-and they are more or less equivalent.
--Ken Thompson, father of Unix
There's more than one way to do it.
--The Perl Motto
SCSI CDROMs have always been problematic (Score:2)
However, this IS an installation problem rather than a reliability problem. Once it's running, Linux is rock solid. NT installs fine on most systems but it's reliability is poor. Take your pick. I'm more interested in the long haul.
Re:PAC? (Score:2)
That's okay, I have no respect for people who invent cutting-edge technology years before it's time, and forget to release or market it. That's not what I pay my phone bill for...
the problem with smart people.... (Score:2)
is that they often fail to see the merit of non-optimal solutions.
Anyone with much experience has seen first hand how Linux is not worse than Microsoft products, but in fact is generally superior at everything Ken mentioned in his interview.
My college advisor (and a person I know and respect as a very bright person) once told me, "Dan, why are you wasting all this effort on web stuff, its just a passing fad?" This was in '93.
Sometimes smart people just don't get it. It was really hard for me to ignore this 'smart person', but its been growing steadily easier over the years.
Re:Linux More Unreliable than M$? (Score:2)
The fact is that technology is EVOLUTIONARY and if you don't keep up and specially ADAPT, then you become extinct, even if you where the origin of life!
I think he has to update his Brain BIOS to current standards.
EVOLUTION (Score:2)
Ken is acting exactly like Tanembaun did with Linus when Linux was being born; and like that he is also wrong.
Ken is in the process of becomming extinct. Some body please upgrade his brain BIOS; oh no thats right he does not have flashrom we will have to do surgery! Sorry, but I just think he may be old and senile and probably does not enjoy the entusiasm that Linux gives to engineers all over the World.
The fact is that no matter what is wrong with Linux today, it will move forward asymptotically reaching perfection because Linux does not represent an OS, but a whole new playground for engineers to interact freely, Again!
Re:Linux More Unreliable than M$? (Score:3)
Anyway, the real question is what does Thompson know about Linux? So he and a few friends have tried it and found it to be unreliable. Whatever that means. Without references to specific issues, it's impossible to argue with that. In many people's experiences, Linux is as reliable as the hardware allows---which may not be much if the hardware is a PC.
I can understand an *unqualified* rating of ``unreliable'', but when you say that it's worse than Microsoft, that is plain out to lunch, credentials or not. Linux is orders of magnitude more reliable than Microsoft's flagship operating system.
In Thompson's Defence. (Score:4)
"Thompson: I view Linux as something that's not Microsoft-a backlash against Microsoft...don't think it will be very successful in the long run...My experience and some of my friends' experience is that Linux is quite unreliable. Microsoft is really unreliable but Linux is worse."
Well, I don't know if it's just me, but I really feel like I read this whole thing before, about 2-3 months ago? And, If I haven't, I sure know I have heard it before from others.
The thing is, Linux is very new (speaking from the time of origin of UNIX), and developing very rapidly. This is an "Old Party Line" about Free UNIX's, and not something I am shocked by at all.
I consider myself "new" to the UNIX community, starting out in IRIX in about 1994. I remember clearly the days that people were saying many things like this, and in my mind it seems pretty far back. But in the mind of the guy who invented UNIX, I am sure it's just like yesterday. I recall "Yea, Linux is unstable, insecure, and just wacked, if you absolutely have to run a networked box to do any server stuff on a Free Unix, run FreeBSD. Linux is only a toy for workstations. You can get more fun toy applications for Linux that FreeBSD, but it's not as stable or secure for a server." I remember MANY people held that opinion. "Don't ever consider a free unix for something mission critical, and Linux is the dead last choice if you do." Not my word, just stuff I remember hearing.
So, of course, being the "fly in the face of danger" kind of guy I am, when I went to stick UNIX on my home PC, I picked Linux... and that was only about 2-3 years ago now. And I'll tell you, Linux has changed DRASTICALLY in the short time I have used it. So, IMHO, it doesn't sound shocking to me, it just sounds like Thompson is way out of touch with what has happened in the UNIX world in the last 18 months.
Linux Source Code problems. (Score:2)
I don't know. Maybe I should be running Windows98 at home. What do you guys think?
Re:Linux More Unreliable than M$? (Score:3)
Hold it right there. The man wrote UNIX; end of story. He didn't just come along and hack out yet another clone, which is really all Linus has done; without Ken there would be no such thing as UNIX. Whether you agree with him or not, there is no room for skepticism about his credentials. He knows what he is talking about, and his criticism generally is not to be taken lightly.
Re:It's just sour grapes (Score:4)
This is hubris, Bruce. The truly enduring thing about UNIX isn't any particular implementation, but the generality of the API. The design that Ken and Dennis set forth has survived the introduction of networks, graphics devices, multiprocessors, etc. Linus stood on the shoulders of giants, and Ken Thompson is one of those giants.
Ouch!!!! (Score:2)
He is working on Plan9 and other stuff. Somehow, I don't think that Plan9 will ever have the impact that Unix had (or that Linux is *having*). Many people here think that his statement amounts to sour grapes since his more recent work isn't getting any awards. I expect he has some real, technical reasons for his statements, and I'd like to hear them.
Another point to remember is that Linux is perhaps more a political movement than a technical one, and Thompson isn't into politics. As for the long term impact of Linux, I think that he is off, but only time will tell.
--Lenny
//"You can't prove anything about a program written in C or FORTRAN.
It's really just Peek and Poke with some syntactic sugar."
Re:"'Perfect' is the enemy of 'good'" -Linus Torva (Score:2)
This makes it sould like Thompson will pick the "complex but perfect" choice. That appears to be very much not the case. Look at windowing systems for a moment, Linux seems to have chosen X11 as it's windowing system. A good choice, the code was available, many applications allready use it, while it has huge flaws it is gennerally beleved to be usable. Inferno's windowing system is 100% new. If you look at X's drawing primitaves there are tons of them, there are dozens of ways to manuplate a "Graphics Context", diffrent ways to draw text made of 8bit charactors or 16 bit charactors, a call to draw a line, a call to draw multiple lines at once, maybe as many as 150 diffrent X calls to "draw stuff". Then there are liberies built on top of X. Inferno's windowing system has exactly one drawing primitave "take rectangle A from this pixel source, and scale/rotate it to size B in that pixel sink". (In Inferno pixel sources/sinks all have alpha masks) Then liberies are built on top of that.
Which is better depeneds on how you judge. If I were making an OS and wanted to see 3rd party applications on within five years I would never make a new windowing system, not matter how cool. I would use X11, or Display PostScript (or both).
Supports more hardware then what? Linux definitly supports more PC hardware then Plan 9, and almost defintily more hardware by count then Plan 9. Same for Inferno if you ignore Inferno running as a guest OS under Windows (and whichever IBM S/390 OS's they support). Inferno runs a few places Linux doesn't (like the Sony PlayStation), but I expect Linux runs places Inferno doesn't, and could probbably run on just as much bare metal as Inferno.
He didn't complain that Linux doesn't support lots of hardware. He complained about it's reliability. Which isn't something I can't comment (much) on, I havn't found Linux to be particurally unstable, nor have I heard creditable reports of it being unstable. As others have said maybe he tested an old version of Linux.
Note: we still have the complex overengineered *interfaces*. Programmers please think of all the work you need to do to open a TCP socket, connect it to a remote host and port (three syscalls, plus a call to gethostbyname, and getprotobyname). Contract that to Plan9's:
finger_fd = open("/net/inet/tcp/hostname.domain/finger", O_RDWR, 0);
I'm sure I didn't get the exact path, I'm not a Plan9 user, I just read all the White Papers I could find. Also note that this is so simple you can write a finger client as a tiny shell script.
Linux or *BSD could choose to implment this in addition to the normal interface (there are several *BSD implmentations of this sort of thing using portals), but they can't discard the overcomplex socket interface.
As a matter of Law, no signifigant quantity of copyrighten material (which I think means cpio in it's entierity, some header files that really only have one strightforward representation, and nothing else). Go hunt up AT and T's lawsuit against BSDI.
I expect almost everything he ever produced that was intresting, and not turned into a product has a paper written about it. A paper that can located and read. It is depressing that so little of it has code you can get for free, or even for a "modest" fee (Lucent's Toolchest II CD is $500, more then I can afford at home, a pittace for my employer to buy).
The thing I find depressing is I'm sure there are flaws in Linux, and if he had pointed out a handful of them people would rush off and work on them, maybe even manage to fix them. Unfortunitly all his Linux comment will do is cause some to snicker, and other to get pissed off.
P.S. I think one big reason "Plan9 lost in the marketplace" is Plan9 was never really in the marketplace. You could get it for free (or cheep? Inferno was free), and do non-products with it for free. A product baised on it would cost $250,000 or call for pricing. Plan9 is cool, but i can't see it saving $250,000 over Linux or *BSD on very many projects.
It's a troll, ignore it. (Score:2)
Re:It's just sour grapes (Score:2)
There are lots of great ideas that never make it out of the lab. People at Xerox invented what we know as the "Mac" paradigm today. It took Steve Jobs to bring it out of the lab. Unix was a dying thing before Linus came along. Linus didn't invent it, but he stumbled across the methodology necessary to do it right.
There were electric lights before Edison, you know.
Bruce
Re:It's just sour grapes (Score:2)
Bruce
Re:Duplicating the Plan 9 API in Linux? (Score:2)
Re:It's just sour grapes (Score:2)
Bruce
Re:It's just sour grapes (Score:2)
Regarding whether or not Linux is a better Unix, that's my judgement as a Unix systems programmer since 1981. I guess not everyone will agree with me, that's life.
One of the best things we're seeing is the vast number of uncredentialed researchers doing good work with Linux. The system needed some shaking up.
Thanks
Bruce
It wasn't dying? (Score:2)
Bruce
Re:You accuse *Thompson* of taking it personally? (Score:2)
I think that it's not unusual for an OS researcher to have some resentment about OS practice.
Bruce
Re:Biggest "X" flaw... (Score:2)
The main failure of X was that it deliberately did not have a canonical widget set. Motif came along much too late. If HP/Sun/Dec/ etc. could have looked up from their efforts to differentiate themselves, they would have avoided handing their business over to Microsoft.
Bruce
Re:You accuse *Thompson* of taking it personally? (Score:2)
From 1981-1986 I was worked at the NYIT Computer Graphics Laboratory, predecessor of Pixar. We had these two really hot researchers who just moped around all day and played lots of video games. They'd convinced themselves that all of the real innovations in CG had already been done, and that they really had no chance to make a major contribution. Lots of major contributions in CG were made during the subsequent decade, but not by those two.
Bruce
Re:Try http://www.berlin-consortium.org (Score:2)
Bruce
Re:A TROLL??? (Score:2)
Bruce
Re:Just wondering (Score:2)
So far, it looks as if the vector sum likes me, but your vote is not being counted!
Bruce
Re:You accuse *Thompson* of taking it personally? (Score:2)
Bruce
Re:No. (Score:2)
Oh, sorry! I haven't been keeping up with CT's latest tweaks. I do notice that my posts started coming in at +2 again.
Thanks
Bruce
Re:You accuse *Thompson* of taking it personally? (Score:2)
I wonder though if it could be like physics in the 1920's, when people thought the fundamentals were done, just before quantum mechanics happened.
Thanks
Bruce
It's just sour grapes (Score:3)
Plan 9 and its descendants have their share of good ideas, but they're not going to go anywhere as long as there's no Open Source. They've even been replaced by Linux as a research OS at most universities, and they have never seen very much practical use.
Don't you think it would be difficult for Thompson to accept that a 21-year-old kid had come along and done a better job with Thompson's own idea than Thompson could do with all of the power of ATT behind him?
Bruce Perens
Re:It's just sour grapes (Score:2)
Have you ever used plan9? I believe it is much better than linux/unix. I think the reason linux has blown it away in the market is because linux is a less radical departure from the status quo - and because it is free (as in beer). Not because linux is a better system than plan 9. I really hope that we're not at the point where open source and free software eclipse innovative products just because they aren't Open Source(TM).
Re:Linux More Unreliable than M$? (Score:2)
Okay, you're right about him creating it, and I admit I didn't realize this when I posted the original message.
However, I only doubted his credibility after realizing that what he said about Linux versus M$ reliability couldn't be further from the truth, given supported hardware running on both.
Regardless of his credentials, what he said shows either a lot of ignorance or is a deliberate attempt at FUD about Linux.
Ben
Try Debian? (Score:3)
I use it on all the servers I admin, and it works flawlessly, is stable, and is a great server OS.
It's easy to maintain, keep up to date, etc., and it has a really effective bug tracking system.
I've used FreeBSD, but I still like Debian better because there is more going on in the Linux camp.
As far as stability, neither FreeBSD nor Linux has crashed on me, but I had to use FreeBSD as a bridging firewall, since nothing like that exists for Linux.
I don't think it's time to write off Linux on the server. I use it on systems where the loads are high, and the system just keeps chugging. And the kernel is rock-solid. That's where it's most important. Linux hasn't gotten any worse in reliability from 2.0.x to 2.2.x as far as I can tell.
Re:Thompson is the enemy! (Score:2)
Either he used an old version of Linux or a modern one. If it was an early version of Linux, it is dishonest of him not to acknowledge that fact, and he has misrepresented his knowledge of the operating system. This doesn't speak well of him.
On the other hand, if he tried a modern version, he has either never tried a Microsoft OS, or he's a liar, or he's a fool. I don't think he's a fool, and if he has never used an M$ OS he has no business comparing Linux to one (in which case he is misrepresenting his ability to compare them).
Despite Thompson's genius, and despite the fact that he could probably rewrite me in assembly one evening just for kicks, there's no getting around the fact that his comments about Linux are pure unadulterated balderdash. He deserves to be criticized for them.
I'll grant that it's certainly possible that Thompson's comments could have been edited, or that his experience may have been on non-PC hardware -- but then he has no business comparing Linux on non-PC hardware to a PC-based OS like Windows. It's possible that his views were not clearly represented in the article, but there's no question that the content of the article is garbage with resepect to Linux (though I thought the rest of it was interesting).
Linux is not ready as a gateway or firewall (Score:4)
BeOS's display model (Score:2)
I use BeOS regularly, and while it is indeed quite nice, I think that there are some features of X-Windows that BeOS should adopt. Specifically, the BeOS GUI was written with the assumption that there is a single display device, always on the local machine, that has a frame buffer that can be directly accessed in memory space. This is fine for a single-monitor desktop machine, but will present problems if they try to support multi-monitor systems or remote terminals.
I'm not saying that everything about X-Windows is good; just that this is a useful feature that X-Windows has that BeOS's GUI and graphics API lacks. I look forward to seeing future revisions of both systems.
Re:Linux code base too large (Score:2)
just my 2 cents
Man, I've about had it with Thompson. (Score:3)
Ken seems to be famous for doing something and then getting angry at others doing it later. For example, you must have heard about his cute trick of inserting some self-reproducing code into the C compiler to make it compile login with a username/password for him to get in. Real cute, Ken. Way to humiliate everyone who nominated you for the ACM award. Yet he was quoted as saying that RTM, the author of the infamous Internet worm of '88, should be put behind bars for a long time. And we're getting the same sort of conceited hypocracy here. "UNIX? Been there, done that. It's all about this OTHER system, you see, that's totally different, although strangely similar. Free software, what a fad." Then watch Lucent start releasing free source. I'll never stop laughing.
I can respect the man's background, but I can't respect his utter insolence. I realize I'm sounding pretty damn conceited and insolent myself, but... hell, it's a Slashdot comment, and I'm a damn undergraduate. I'm allowed to sound stupid.
Are you kidding? (Score:2)
They compete directly with Linux in a number of areas and have a lot to gain by using their leverage to apply ample amount of FUD to the Linux phenomenon.
Is Inferno really competing with Linux? Like for web servers and such?
Even if it is, I really think that a techy interview with Ken Thompson is hardly a great way to spread FUD to the masses. This is an intervew with a research scientist at Bell Labs. With no pictures! The IT suits are not reading this stuff. Christ, for all I know Thompson may have a Ph.D. or something.
Here's a quote from the article:
Multics was a virtual memory system with page faults, and it didn't differentiate between data and programs. You'd jump to a segment as it was faulted in, whether it was faulted in as data or instructions.
You really think the average MSCE is reading that stuff and getting all pumped up about Microsoft World Domination? It doesn't seem likely.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
What the Linux Community thinks about this article (Score:4)
Look for postings with subject containing "Ken Thompson interview in IEEE Computer magazine", since 04/05, 12:55 +0530
This is interesting reading!
Agreed. Whoever moderated that one down is scared. (Score:3)
I've actually noticed that a lot lately. When the moderation system was first implemented, it seemed like good posts got moderated up, obnoxious flames got moderated down, and most stayed the same, no matter the OS-slant of the writer. (Well, except for _one_ annoying tendency that's been there throughout -- the longer the post, the greater chance of getting moderated up, even when it's complete pablum. Makes me wonder if Katz is doing the moderating ;-))
Lately, however, it seems like a lot of posts that are critical of Linux in non-inflammatory ways are getting moderated down, long posts espousing the virtues of Linux get moderated up, no matter how trite, and inflammatory posts by Linux fanatics don't get touched. It's as if there are some moderators out there who are trying to keep legitimate criticisms of Linux from most readers. Lame.
Along the same line, why hasn't Slashdot put up Mark Russinovich's dissection of Linux's enterprise OS merits? I admit that I didn't submit it, but only because I'm sure that other people have. Is it because since even the people on the Linux kernel list have done such a pathetic job of refuting his claims, you figure that most people here would just embarrass the Linux movement with their own answers? C'mon, give 'em a chance! Hell, please just post a link to the kernel list archive where they tried to rebut him, that's good for a lot of laughs.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Linux. You get what you pay for.
Sad state of Slashdot (Score:3)
None of these people are gods in my eyes, nobody is, we're all human. But to hear criticism from someone so universally respected in the industry, and to whom we owe so much; and to simply call him old, and throw other juvenile insults at him. It's really a sign of the times isn't it?
Slashdot has become a victim of it's own success. I say this in the same way I do about RedHat. There was a time when if you were a newcomer to Linux _and_ Unix at the same time, RedHat was a Godsend. Also there was a time when Slashdot was quite a haven from the hype and the misinformation in the popular media, and you could expect intelligent, thought out comments to articles. It was intellectually stimulating to participate.
Now I've found that the same smart people are still putting this stuff together (Slashdot & RedHat), and they keep it mostly at the same high standard of quality, but now the flavor has gone bad. Too many uneducated reactionaries joining the party. Far to many people whose mantra is "Linus is GOD, Microsoft is the DEVIL".
The signal/noise ratio is way down, maybe even below 1, but I can't stay away since the core of the site is still top notch. All of a sudden I _completely_ understand why Rob went through all that effort to put the moderation system together. But you can't cure AIDS with a band-aid, not even emergency surgery will help. People, I regret to inform you that the Slashdot you once knew is dead... Long live Slashdot. I'm thinking maybe if the site went down for a couple weeks, unannounced, most of the losers would drift off in search of a new haven, but that's naive. A new forum is needed. Maybe it already exists, I'm on a quest to find it. But don't expect to hear about it on Slashdot. I wouldn't want to see a good thing ruined ... again.
Thanks Rob, Hemos, Nate, Sengan, Jon, Cliff. It's been quite a ride. I'll still be around, but I can't say I relly enjoy it anymore.
-earl
P.S.
If you don't understand what I'm talking about, you just might be part of the problem.
Not the end of the road (Score:3)
Try http://www.berlin-consortium.org (Score:2)
The only alternative window system of whose development I am aware is Berlin. Check out the Berlin Consortium home page [berlin-consortium.org]
Are there any others?
Unflattering Review, Part 2 (Score:3)
Re:Just a guess. (Score:2)
That's exactly what we're doing.
Link (Score:3)
Re:It's just sour grapes (Score:3)
I rarely see Linux uptime less than a month. Where are you looking? Perhaps the system you are looking at is running experimental software. If it is, then you have no reason to complain.
The only things that I have ever seen crash Linux are X and GGI. GGI is experimental - play with fire and you get burned. And, last time I checked, the other OS's you list use X too (with the possible exception of OpenVMS, I've never used it so I can't comment there).
Linux, specifically GNU, utilities redefine bloat.
In some cases, I agree (emacs, gnome). In 95% of cases, I disagree (bash, sed, grep, gcc,
Even in those cases where the utilities are bloated, I still use them due to lack of acceptable alternatives (including those from our friends in Redmond). There simply isn't any other editor that can do what emacs can - even die-hard vi fans will admit that. (What they won't admit, though, is that an editor should do those things.)
It was also pointed out in this thread that GNU utilities strive for ease-of-use. This is something that is sorely overlooked by *BSD advocates. Your OS might be the greatest thing since sliced bread but if I (as an end-user) can't be productive with it, you can shove it. In my experience, Linux's ease-of-use is only rivaled among Unixen by Solaris.
I have never seen a Linux distribution that came with full source that could be rebuilt with one command
So what? If your distribution was built correctly in the first place, why rebuild it? Again, this goes back to ease-of-use. For an academic or experimental OS, compiling every program yourself might be acceptable. For a production OS, it is not. Productivity is king, and you lose productivity when you must spend time compiling every program you wish to install.
On my Linux 2.2.x systems, it fails to properly unmount its drives.
I have never heard of this happening to anyone before. This sounds like a symptom of incorrect configuration. Do you really believe that "Linux is simply broken" in such an important area?
I also enjoy it when it simply quits responding to IP packets for a while.
Once again, I have never heard of anything like this happening. I have used Linux for 4 years and have seen nothing but excellent network performance.
I never see BSD systems broken into.
Because it isn't worth the time to crack a system that nobody uses. Linux is gaining in popularity; that means more eyes looking for vulnerabilities. It also means more hands fixing them.
And why do so many of the Linux commands ship without documentation or manpages?
Which commands would those be? Why don't you email the author of the command, and whoever produced the distribution, and ask for documentation? I'll bet in most cases, they would answer "it's already there, look in
The fact of the matter is, price being considered equal, OS's are judged by the marketplace, and the marketplace is saying that Linux is better, due to a nice combination of technical excellence and mass-market appeal. *BSD advocates really seem sore about this, because they don't seem to realize the second part of the equation. Technical excellence isn't enough.
-Tom
Brutal and maybe true, but... (Score:2)
Thompson: I view Linux as something that's not Microsoft-a backlash against Microsoft, no more and no less. I don't think it will be very
successful in the long run. I've looked at the source and there are pieces that are good and pieces that are not. A whole bunch of random people
have contributed to this source, and the quality varies drastically.
My experience and some of my friends' experience is that Linux is quite unreliable. Microsoft is really unreliable but Linux is worse. In a
non-PC environment, it just won't hold up. If you're using it on a single box, that's one thing. But if you want to use Linux in firewalls, gateways,
embedded systems, and so on, it has a long way to go." Computer MAgizine
He is right in the fact work needs to be done on linux. But is that not what we are doing everyday? Alot of people know there are problems and are trying to fix them. Can everybody say the same about Microsoft.
Thompson may be feeling a little pissed that Linux has a shot at the user market when Unix was never considered for it.
As for the problems he and his freinds had with Linux the comman man would never tweak a system as hard as Ken. On any system if you keep going into the kernal and playing around you should expect problems. I think Linux is in it for the long haul for several reasons. One is the price free as PC,Apple etc.. keep droping in price people will not want to spend $200 of a $400 system just for the OS, and no apps. Also the portablity think about it you can run it on almost any hardware out there, so then your not stuck with just one hardware type you can buy the cheapest and know the interface will be the same. I also know that intel has already complied a 64bit Linux for the Merced chip using Vmware, so Linux is already for the next generation of Hardware. Is Microsoft ready?
you have to admit.... (Score:3)
The critism that "a whole bunch of random people have contributed to this source, and the quality varies drastically" is right on the money. Any programmer would have to concede the bad code in many parts of Linux. There are many poorly written, or unfinished lines of software here! Its the truth.
The recent push to 'celo-wrap' Linux has raised the bar of expectations. And all Linux's dirty laundry is open for public consumption. Ultimately, this will be a good thing, as software darwinism ensures that better code will replace poor code. Linux has flaws, the community should admit it, remove them, and move forward.
John
Second try: I'd say he just "to-helled" us.... (Score:2)
I view Linux as something that's not Microsoft, a backlash against Microsoft, no more and no less. I don't think it will be very successful in the long run. I've looked at the source and there are pieces that are good and pieces that are not. A whole bunch of random people have contributed to this source, and the quality varies drastically.
My experience and some of my friends' experience is that Linux is quite unreliable. Microsoft is really unreliable but Linux is worse. In a non-PC environment, it just won't hold up. If you're using it on a single box, that's one thing. But if you want to use Linux in firewalls, gateways, embedded systems, and so on, it has a long way to go.
Linux is more unreliable than M$ crap? Come on. That looks like a to-hell with Linux to me. He's calling it dead-end, without even giving it a chance. Did he write all his software in a day?
You say, "I am right, the hell with you." And, of course the person who has been "to helled with" wants to prove his point, and so he goes off and does it. That's ultimately the way you prove a point. So that is the way most of the arguments are done simply by trying them.
He's right about this. We are the to-helled people here, and we need to go ahead and prove that Linux can do all it can, and more.
(P.S.) It's annoying that the HTML tags are lost when you preview your comments
Re:except he's right (Score:2)
Linux is worse than Microsoft stuff. Take off your biasing blinders once is while.
The only things M$ stuff has that Linux doesn't have is: Ease of installation, and huge commercial application support.
The things Linux has that M$ stuff doesnt: Stability, speed, free source code, security, and rapid bug fixing.
But that's not why I say Linux is better. I used Linux for the first time back when it was kernel .99. I downloaded a disk off of the internet called "The Discus- Linux on a single disk" and played with it. It was interesting, but I never thought much more on it.
That is, until someone gave me a l/p on their dial-in Linux box. That was when the 1.0 kernels were out. I thought it was ultra cool that it could run DOS stuff, and display it all over my modem. Remote computing is neat.
But I still used MS-DOS at home. I didn't like Windows 3.1, not because I hated Microsoft, but because my HDD was small, and I was a mere high-school student. My old 386sx-25 with a 40 MB hard disk couldn't handle it.
So, I graduated high school, and went into the Army. I got a real computer with my new steady income and installed Win95. I thought Win95 was cool, a lot better interface than the Mac, and much better than Windows 3.1. But a friend of mine was running Linux.
I got a slackware 3.0 CD, kernel 1.2.x, and tried it out. I learned a lot about Linux, and got it set up nicely, and it wasn't as hard as the horror stories. After about a year of having Linux on my machine, something happened: When I first installed Linux, I booted it maybe 1% of the time... after a year, I was booting it constantly, only loading Win95 when I wanted to play games.
So, what was it about Linux that made me keep coming back to it instead of using Win95 all the time? For one thing, it was FUN. I could tweak the system in all sorts of ways. It was educational. I learned about C and Perl and networking. It was also FAST. It made my P100 fly compared to Win95, even with X. I could also DIAL-IN and USE my LINUX box from other places. That was cool. I even got an X server for Win95 and put it on one of our laptops so I could use my stuff from elsewhere. That was way cool.
So, that's what I think makes Linux better. You get all this stuff for free, totally customizable, and not all that hard to use if you are willing to learn. All that stuff you pay extra for with Microsoft-based products.I still use Win98, and am even a beta tester for it, but basically I only use it when I want to play games.
So, what I am trying to say is, I am not biased, nor do I feel that Linux should be restricted to the "genius/geek/nerd" class, nor do I hate Microsoft. I may hate their business practices, but I don't hate their products. In fact, I like MS Office. But I do think that Linux is better, not because it's a Microsoft alternative, but because it is truly better, if you give it a chance.
My $.031415926536
One place where Linux reliability is a problem. (Score:3)
I had a huge headache at work a week and a half ago when everything died. I'm in a scientific group, and we've mostly used Solaris in the past. We've been ramping up our Linux usage, and on the whole Linux has been *more* stable than Solaris. However, we just recently started writing in bulk to a Linux disk NFS exported to a Solaris machine, and the nfs daemon *kept* *dying*. Very annoying.
I solved it with some Alan Cox patches that included H.J. Lu's latest knfsd. So Linux isn't as unreliable as it first looked. But there are a few places where Linux still does falter.
I think Thompson greatly overstates it, however. And, it is important qualifier on my NFS problems that there were patches out there I could apply that solved them.
-Rob