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Linus Holds Forth On the Future of Linux

Posted by timothy on from the and-who-better dept.

colinmc151 writes "As part of Geekcruises' Linux Lunacy cruise to Alaska, Linus Torvalds was interviewed and answered questions about where he sees the future of Linux with a particular eye towards developers. Great stuff."

6 of 249 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Linus about Mac OS X? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    from here:

    On Apple and OS X
    I never much liked Macs. All the interesting stuff is hidden away. They made the base of the house open source, but all the rest of the stuff, the wiring, is their own stuff. I don't want that to happen with Linux.

    [Mac OS X] doesn't give me the warm-and-fuzzies. I actually dislike Mach a lot. I think they made a lot of bad design choices.

  2. Re:Linus about Mac OS X? by axxackall · · Score: 5, Informative
    From the book review:
    Linus discusses why he continues to use a standard kernel as opposed to a microkernel. This discussion basically says that microkernels are not as efficient or easy to use as a standard kernel. The driving force behind Linus not using a microkernel approach is because he believes the parts are bigger than the whole, essentially saying it is more difficult to understand/develop a kernel with a modular approach as opposed to the standard kernel. Microkernels spend lots of time communicating from one piece of the kernel to another where a standard kernel has shared pieces so the communication doesn't have to take place. This specific piece is where the developers of microkernel implementations differ from Linus.
    --

    Less is more !
  3. Re:Linus about Mac OS X? by Trurl's+Machine · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is like saying that a husband is against the very idea of vacuuming, rather than simply doesn't want to vacuum.

    But this particular husband says - for example - that "one of the arguments against vacuuming, pardon, mcrokernels has always been performance" (page 130 of the hardcover edition). There are also other anti-microkernel rants scattered all over the book, but I hope this example is enough. It's not that Linus says "I don't want to do this", he also says that it's the wrong idea.

  4. Linux needs automatic configuration. by MtViewGuy · · Score: 3, Informative

    I think one of the big issues that is holding back Linux for desktop users is the fact the OS still does not completely support automatic configuration of hardware, especially hot-docked devices through the USB and IEEE-1394 ports. This is something that Windows has done pretty well, especially with Windows 2000 Professional and Windows XP Home/Professional.

    I'm hoping that Linux will incorporate the Open Source equivalent of the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) which has been used since Windows 98.

  5. Re:coherent distributed filesystem by ComputerSlicer23 · · Score: 3, Informative
    Intermezzo and GFS/OpenGFS are two I know of.

    Intermezzo sounds like it wants to be the end all be all of every feature you could ever want in a filesystem. Hence I think it won't work.

    GFS is by Sistina (the people behind LVM and Device Mapper in Linux, but not ELVM) and uses SCSI3 locks as it's locking mechanism (the locking mechanism defined at the bottom of the SCSI layer, in version 3 of the standard).

    Sistina did it GPL'ed thru the beta, and then took it propriatary after the beta. Thus OpenGFS was spawned. I haven't seen much out of that. Never used it really.

    Kirby

  6. Re:Linus about Mac OS X? by JamesKPolk · · Score: 5, Informative

    Torvalds against anything proprietary? Where have you been since Torvalds has begun using Bitkeeper (a proprietary RCS) for all his kernel development?