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Why Was Linux the Kernel That Succeeded?

Posted by samzenpus on from the belle-of-the-ball dept.

jones_supa writes: "One of the most puzzling questions about the history of free and open source software is this: Why did Linux succeed so spectacularly, whereas similar attempts to build a free or open source, Unix-like operating system kernel met with considerably less success?" Christopher Tozzi has rounded up some theories, focusing specifically on kernels, not complete operating systems. These theories take a detailed look at the decentralized development structure, pragmatic approach to things, and the rich developer community, all of which worked in favor of Linux.

4 of 469 comments (clear)

  1. Who says it succeeded? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    The Linux kernel will always be relegated to test environments until such time as it has a true memory manager that doesn't just WAG it when a memory request comes in.

    Overallocations, OoM Killer, hangs and freezes all because the kernel can't be bothered to keep track of every last bit of it's memory make the Linux kernel a piss-poor substitute for a real UNIX kernel.

  2. Re:The GPL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Which systemd destroys by the day...

  3. Re:0.96pl5 by jbolden · · Score: 1, Troll

    Your years are off. Around the time of the 386SX I had 20megs of RAM in my 386. Hard drives were hundreds of megs. $1000k 20mb drive is like 1985 or so. 1990 you are at like $10 / meg for storage and 1995 around $2 / meg.

  4. Re:Don't break user space! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Hmm, wonder how much farther you can cram Linus' cock down your throat?