RE: why linux? -- MIDRANGE-L


-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Wills, Mike N. (TC)
Sent: Friday, October 03, 2003 2:52 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: RE: why linux?

>>That said, before people jump on the Linux wagon, I think they should be
>>aware that the WIN32 kernel of windows started as POSIX and then was
>>improved greatly by the smart people at Microsoft.  Unicode, a whole suite
>>of thread syncronization objects and functions, good stack walking debug
>>features.  And documentation that is suprisingly easy to read and
>>comprehend. Its pretty impressive.

>>> But how can you say it is improved when they use just parts of it not
>everything? They may be using the BSD TCP/IP stack, but it is only have
>half-breed. They have tossed together things like a salad. It doesn't
always
>work together nicely. If it is better how come there is major flaws every
>couple weeks? I am NOT saying Linux doesn't, but theirs seem to be few an
>far in between.







>>Based on the little I know, it looks like microsoft took posix and
improved
>>on it.  IBM has taken it and just dropped it on the as400 as is.  And
Linux,
>>guided by one fellow named Linus, has been preoccupied with rewriting it
and
>>has also not improved on it.

>>> How can you say this? Do you know the history of linux? Linux was
>created to replace UNIX so Linus didn't have to spend the big bucks on
UNIX.
>I think they have improved it quite a bit. My linux server at home is up to
>34 days runtime without rebooting.. And yes I am up to date on patches. If
>you think they improved it, explain to me this. There are people that swear
>that on a laptop, they can't run Windows anymore on battery because they
get
>about 10 mins of battery time. Under Linux they get about 30-40 mins. This
>isn't exaggerating. Under Windows 2k the idle process uses 16k of memory,
>under Linux it uses (if I am reading it right) 488 bytes.

Mike,

I cant dispute anything you say from you experience using Linux and Windows.
My experience is in programming to the WIN32 api.  My question to all is
what did Linux add to the programming side of Linux?  What new kernel APIs
were added?

Another example. From what I know, Posix and WIN32 both provide semaphores
and mutexs to use to syncronize threads.  WIN32 adds an Event signaling
object. An event can be Set ( signaled ), reset ( non signaled ) and pulsed
( SetEvent, release waiters, then ResetEvent ). When a manual reset event is
pulsed, all the waiting threads are released.  When an auto reset event is
pulsed, only one waiting thread is released. Does POSIX or LINUX provide an
event signaling object?

With all the talk of Linus I am very curious to learn what its kernel is all
about. Here is a $70 book that has been recommended to me:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0201563177/002-0265981-9979277
?v=glance

As far as windows being unstable, I dont buy it.  In my experience crashing
windows with my code, it has always been because of my code, not windows. I
have been programming windows for a few years now and have yet to find a bug
in the OS.

-Steve