On Thu, 23 Mar 2000, OS wrote:
> 1) 'Linux is only capable of blocking'. I thought Unix became non blocking about
> 1980, but I'm not sure. If it did I assume Linux is as well.
As far as I know, Linux has *always* had non-blocking I/O. Unix has for as
long as I've used it (first started in '87), and, again, as far as I know,
always has supported it.
> 2) NT / 2000 are completely object oriented from the ground up. Linux / Unix
> are 'monolithoc monstrosities that wouldn't know an object it it bit them'. I
> really don't know if the Linux kernel is OO or not.
Anyone who touts OO as an OS kernel feature is obviously too clueless to
understand what OO is good for. AFAIK, both NT and Linux use monolithic
kernels. Most good OSs do, since the alternatives are slower. Tanenbaum
(a critic of monolithic kernels) says faster hardware makes up for slower
software, but some of us would rather squeeze the extra performance out
than rely on (in my opinion) inferior, non-monolithic designs. Note that
this has nothing to do with OO at all. A monolithic kernel can be OO, and
a non-monolithic kernel can be non-OO (witness Tabenbaum's Minix). These
are completely unrelated issues and your friends are displaying monumental
ignorance by confusing the two.
> 3) 'Linux / Unix is only capable of non pre-emptive scheduling, which is crap
> compared to the vastly superior MS models'. Again, I have no answer to this.
Again, monumental ignorance. Unlike Microsoft Windows, Linux has *always*
had preemptive multitasking. And again, AFAIK, so has Unix.
