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If Linux Never Was – imagining an alternate reality without Linux

lunduke.com

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Re: If Linux Never Was – imagining an alternate reality without Linux

#7
Like everyone else is saying. This is silly. Another open source kernel and OS would’ve taken Linux’s place.

An easier example is Git. If Git wasn’t made. Or perhaps it was made by an unknown and thus didn’t gain traction, the world would be pretty close to how it is now. Another DVCS like Hg would’ve been widely used or a split of a few. However it would’ve ended up, the world would be, relatively speaking, the same.

Re: If Linux Never Was – imagining an alternate reality without Linux

#8
post #5
post #4

If not some version of BSD, we might be using Minix or perhaps Hurd.

This, I feel like Linux was just sexier for kernel devs, robbing Hurd of potential support

I don’t know anything about Hurd besides GNU working on it when Linux came out. What was sexier about Linux? Was Hurd any good?

Re: If Linux Never Was – imagining an alternate reality without Linux

#9
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, I feel like Linux was just sexier for kernel devs, robbing Hurd of potential support

I don’t know anything about Hurd besides GNU working on it when Linux came out. What was sexier about Linux? Was Hurd any good?

I don't know how "sexier" has anything to do with the topic.

Linux was available now. Hurd ... was not. Still isn't.

Hurd is based on a microkernel architecture, which was/is enticing because (quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Hurd ), "In theory the microkernel design would allow for all device drivers to be built as servers working in user space" and "According to Hurd developers, the main advantage of microkernel-based design is the ability to extend the system: developing a new module would not require in depth knowledge of the rest of the kernel, and a bug in one module would not crash the entire system."

There is a long debate about microkernel vs monolithic kernel. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microkernel for one such summary.

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