On Thu, 28 Oct 1999 09:59:10 EDT, the world broke into rejoicing as John Tobey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: > > > b) Is there some compelling purpose that Hurd can serve that Linux > > > inherently *cannot?* > > > > I do not think so. It is just the cleaner design, but that is only of > > interest to those who want to hack it. > > It is enough for a feature to be so much easier to do on Hurd that no > one will bother getting it into Linux. > > I imagine an Internet hosting service could offer the equivalent of a > dedicated server as a sub-Hurd, so the customer can do the things that > only root can do on Unix, but several customers could safely share a > machine. Can VMWare do that already? (i.e. completely protect the > hardware and other VMs from each other) > > Also, I think the possible uses for filesystem translators are > inexhaustible. I'm hoping to write the glue that will allow writing > ad hoc translators in Perl with minimal effort.
I would suppose that for the "balance" to shift in Hurd's direction, there needs to be a combination of both: a) Hurd being "adequate" for those that use Linux; e.g. - you're able to run a large proportion of the sorts of stuff that runs on Debian with Hurd, and b) Some downright *advantage* to using Hurd. It's going to be applications that can be built *using* fs translators that would be the "killer application," not necessarily the translator ability itself... -- "It's a pretty rare beginner who isn't clueless. If beginners weren't clueless, the infamous Unix learning cliff wouldn't be a problem." -- david parsons [EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>
