Subject: Re: Language Paradigms (was RTFM Resources Wanted)
From: John Canning (john@pcc.com )
Date: Tue Jul 03 2001 - 11:37:33 MDT
On Mon Jul 2 19:00:31 2001 Patrick Callahan wrote:
>
> Where exactly is the innovation in Linux. Can anyone out there with more
> experience than me, name the things in Linux that are truly original in the
> last few years. Is there anything new in linux that is not found in other
> operating systems before it appeared in linux? What's the historical
> perspective?
Well, we'll start with the kernel. You have the source code to the
kernel. You can read through it and learn a lot about how an operating
system works. You can easily add device drivers to it. In fact, Linux
is one of the few operating systems that will work just about every
imaginable ethernet card you can install in your computer.
The next thing that Linux offers is the ability to run on almost any
computer you may have at your disposal. You don't need to have the
latest Mac or Intel box. We have a number of 486s running Linux at my
office that perform much better than any machine running Windows 98.
Linux is a combination of the Linus' kernel and a host of software
written by the folks at GNU. The GNU folks have been innovating for
quite some time. In fact, their C compiler has pretty much become
the defacto standard for C compilers; it's the one you want to beat
if you are writing a new compiler.
If you enjoy surfing the web, you are also benefiting from two other
features of Linux. The first is the open source project known as
apache. It is the web server that serves the majority of web pages
around the world. The second is Linux's sense of security. Granted,
this came from Linux's Unix heritage, but it's still something that
can't be matched by single user OSs such as Windows or Mac OS 9.
Are those enough examples?
John
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