On Thu, Oct 04, 2001 at 05:20:57AM -0700, Paolo Falcone wrote: > As opposed to Tannenbaum's approach of making a > microkernel-based kernel, he instead made the Linux > kernel of a monolithic design, similar to the > structure proposed by Kerninghan and Ritchie in their > paper about the design of Unix in 1974. Some > considerations as to why he didn't choose Tannenbaum's > idea were: to have a sure, working implementation of a
That's not shaping up to become such a good idea anymore. The current kernel has 2,440,919 physical source lines of code as of Kernel 2.4.2, according to David Wheeler's count (http://www.dwheeler.com/sloc/redhat71-v1/kernel_sloc). Doesn't that worry some people around here? The monolithic design is probably not going to be best for high scalability and for distributed computing environments. > Linus would've not created the Linux kernel in the > first place if Unix was free (AT&T closed the source > starting with System 7), or Minix was free (Minix was The original Unix was never free. AT&T owned the source lock, stock, and barrel ever since day one. They gave away source licenses to universities such as UC Berkeley, but BSD Unix back then could not be used by anyone else without buying an expensive source license from AT&T because they owned major parts of the code. Around the time Linus began working on Linux (1991), Berkeley CSRG removed the remainder of the code owned by AT&T, and Bill and Lynne Jolitz rewrote the excised portions and began to complete the port to the 386. It makes you wonder why BSD never seems to have achieved the level of popularity Linux enjoys. The Jolitzes had a great big head start over Linus Torvalds in making a working system, apparently, but it seems Linux won. Or why Linux exists in spite of the existence of the BSD-derived Unixes, which are almost as Free as Linux is (Linux is GNU, BSD has a more liberal license), if the argument in this paragraph is true. > primarily designed as an academic tool, and not freely > distributable), or had the HURD was already available Not only that, it's hampered by that precise fact; it was designed first and foremost as an academic tool. Performance was not a very big issue for Andy Tanenbaum, but rather clarity of presentation. > (it still is under development - I wonder how much > longer would it take, but I hope I'll see it real > soon...). Yeah! Well, the Linux and Hurd kernels could mate at some point in the future and come up with a better, stronger progeny! :) -- Rafael R. Sevilla <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> +63(2) 8177746 ext. 8311 Programmer, Inter.Net Philippines +63(917) 4458925 http://dido.engr.internet.org.ph/ OpenPGP Key ID: 0x5CDA17D8 _ Philippine Linux Users Group. Web site and archives at http://plug.linux.org.ph To leave: send "unsubscribe" in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe to the Linux Newbies' List: send "subscribe" in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
