Submitted by Linus Torvalds, leader of the cult of Linux, took a swipe at Apple’s OS X and Microsoft Vista in the same breath at a conference in Australia last week. Speaking at the linux.conf.au conference in Melbourne, Australia, a few weeks ago, Torvalds called Leopard ‘utter crap’ and bashed the proprietary OS makers for being greedy, according to Australian reporter Nick Miller in the The Age. “I don’t think they’re equally flawed – I think Leopard is a much better system,” Torvalds said. “(But) OS X in some ways is actually worse than Windows to program for. Their file system is complete and utter crap, which is scary.” He also scoffed at his rivals’ practice of revenue-through-renewal by launching upgrades that require new purchases. “An operating system should be completely invisible,” Torvalds said. “To Microsoft and Apple (it is) a way to control the whole environment – to force people to upgrade their applications and hardware.”
Do people really spend all day taking things out of context?
“Their file system is complete and utter crap, which is scary.”
HFS+ is “utter crap” and it is scary… but did he say OSX was utter crap? No.
Get a freaking hobby already…
File systems is totally boring to me. What am I missing?
So, I am running OS X, subjectively I must say that it just works and feels quite fast. What am I missing compared to Linux regarding file systems?
I know HPS+ is really old and that they had to add something to it to get all that images of the entire disk in Time Machine. And I heard that ZFS is coming, but should I really feel bad that I don’t have one of the file systems that linux distros use? What would be better in my daily writing and reading on my mac?
Edited 2008-02-08 06:49 UTC
Linus is stating the obvious. In fact, when read in context, his statements seem fairly sound.
Proprietary software makers are forced to put upgrades in the market place because they otherwise go out of business. While FLOSS benefits from commercial success, it goes on irrespectively, particularly because its revenue stream is primarily tied to support services instead of licenses.
And HSF and HSF+ are indeed pretty old and junky. Let’s hope that Apple eventually replaces them with ZFS.
Very true. Hopefully, Apple can polish ZFS implementation for 10.6.
While FLOSS benefits from commercial success, it goes on irrespectively, particularly because its revenue stream is primarily tied to support services instead of licenses.
Which means that:
a) Those who don’t have support or hardware to sell probably can’t make money with FLOSS, unless they’re gonna sell t-shirts or something. This would hurt most (if not all) COTS vendors and micro ISVs.
b) Do you think that those FLOSS companies who depend on support services as their revenue stream are going to make their apps easy to use so that you didn’t need support to begin with? Probably not.
in response to b:
I truly don’t believe, opensource companies will make their products harder to use: because of several reasons:
-: A lot of companies want support, so they can poke someone when something goes terribly wrong etc, not because their own experts can’t work with the software
-: competition can use usability to create their products more appealing, (unless they suddenly all agree to generate equally bad products)
-: tech support already get’s loads of phone calls about truly basic questions for the so-called user friendly software (ex: “Where’s the ‘anykey’?”).
-: creating a steep learning curve, scares away a lot of users and potential developers etc
(currently I’m learning Cg and if nVidia made it difficult, I would never started learning it on my own)
Of course those are just couple reasons for a sane company, I’ve seen enough companies that do wacky stuff
A. means that you are not really important if you don’t MAKE hardware. Think of the record industry and who makes money.. those who make songs are a dime a dozen and easily replaced, those who have connections to who owns the CD presses make a mint…for now.
B. Support is about fixing things… correctly. Again, I can buy all the parts to fix my car or plumbing at the discount store for cheap.. it doesn’t make me a car mechanic or plumber though… those jobs are very much still needed and people still pay even though they could replace the parts on their own.
Think of how much harder Red Hat or IBM works for their money on support contracts making software something useful versus Microsoft that sells shiny discs to OEMs with almost no support or performance guaranteed. one is going away soon, guess which one.
Look at IBM or Asus for hardware. EeePC is cheap.. but somebody has to MAKE it. That several million dollars of sunk cost in machinery to make 1 unit. IBM big iron servers are even more expensive to make.. billions to make CPUs. Software like windows or linux is cheap (lots of labor but little capital cost), and OS has almost no value, unless you are Apple and use it as a marketing tool for your Hardware. In the old days, software was part of what made the computer “go”. It was necessary, but hardware sales was the point. Stuff like eeePC is pushing the cost of hardware down so far only freely available tools are cheap enough.
so free software only works when people need support? that explains the over all crappyness
Linux is not a cult and whoever wrote that betrays immaturity. If you don’t like what Linus Torvalds says, then don’t read him, don’t pay attention. Get out more, etc.
You may not agree with what LT says about this or anything else, but he’s just as entitled to his views, however eccentric they may seem, as you are. He’s also free to be wrong. On this occasion I think he is, but so what.
Besides, it seems to be he makes a rather good point in at least one regard: “An operating system should be completely invisible,” Torvalds said. “To Microsoft and Apple (it is) a way to control the whole environment — to force people to upgrade their applications and hardware.” Read that sentence, then recall all the recent arguing bwetween Microsoft and the EU over opening up protocols, or fire up Windows and ask yourself why it doesn’t read Linux file formats (without third-party plugins).
Edited 2008-02-07 23:00 UTC
Well, the fact that there are mechanisms to plug in the support should be good enough. If you make a format, you can certainly make the necessary plugin to make it work with Windows. It’s a bit hard (but possible) with filesystems, but for codecs and image formats, the extensiblity story is pretty easy.
Thing is, for many people out there, the reverse would be more interesting, until Linux users are still “somewhat” less in numbers. The question never was whether plugins can be made or extensibility is hard or not. They [i.e. the Windows side] simply don’t do it, because it’s one of the ways to keep themselves afloat.
I disagree. To some degree, every OS has its disciples (or “true believers”, if you will), who treat a particular personality (Gates, Jobs, Torvalds, etc) as some kind of Messiah. That kind of slavish devotion is clearly on view, and it’s disturbing, cult-like behavior, in my opinion.
From the Wiki:
“Cult typically refers to a cohesive social group devoted to beliefs or practices that the surrounding culture considers outside the mainstream, with a notably positive or negative popular perception. In common or populist usage, “cult” has a positive connotation for groups of art, music, writing, fiction, and fashion devotees, but a negative connotation for new religious, extreme political, questionable therapeutic, and pyramidal business groups. For this reason, most, if not all, non-fan groups that are called cults reject this label.
A group’s populist cult status begins as rumors of its novel belief system, its great devotions, its idiosyncratic practices, its perceived harmful or beneficial effects on members, or its perceived opposition to the interests of mainstream cultures and governments. Cult rumors most often refer to artistic and fashion movements of passing interest, but persistent rumors may escalate popular concern about relatively small and recently founded religious movements, or non-religious groups, perceived to engage in excessive member control or exploitation.”
I actually would prefer to deal with Torvalds than Gates or Jobs, because at least Torvalds speaks his mind. You know where he’s coming from; whereas, I suspect that Gates and Jobs would come at you from the shadows. So, Torvalds may not be right much, but he is fundamentally honest.
Edited 2008-02-08 08:57 UTC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_(disambiguation)
“Cult, a cohesive group of people **devoted to beliefs** **or practices** that the surrounding culture or society considers to be outside the mainstream.”
Windows , Mac OS X and GNU/linux are mainstream OS …
So not only are you not making sense , it’s clear you and the author of this insulting garbage don’t know the meaning of the word cult.
You need disciple to make a cult :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disciple
“A disciple is a follower and student of a mentor, teacher, or other wise figure. It can refer to:”
So all that you said here was just a justification for your baseless usual religious based themed insults and show a sign of clear deformation and of lack of education and of understanding on your part.
By your failed logic , incorect definition and missinterpretation , anyone who use an OS is a cultist …
Seem to me that what you wrote here was just pure garbage.
You need to adjust your thinking a bit. That fact that we’re talking about belief systems that revolve around mainstream products is irrelevant. Belief systems can revolve around ANYTHING. Gods. OSes. Marijuana. The occult. Animals. Golden calves. Pretty much anything you can think of. For example, David Koresh (leader of the ill-fated Branch Davidian cult in Waco Texas) considered himself a Christian and he regularly invoked Christian principles, but I don’t think any sane person would claim that he was a mainstream Christian. His belief system went WAY, WAY beyond anything that Christians believe. That’s what we’re talking about here.
No, you misinterpreted what I wrote. I didn’t say that anyone who uses an OS is a cultist. What I said is that there are people who treat personalities who produce operating systems as Messianic, and their belief systems are so warped (and outside the mainstream) that they self-associate their use of an operating system with a religion. We see it here on osnews.com all the time. People who can’t accept ANY flaws in their particular OS. They’re constantly turning things around, making it the fault of the person who finds problems, going on the attack, debasing other OSes, etc.
Edited 2008-02-09 18:14 UTC
You can pick from a variety of published definitions to suit your purposes. To say that there aren’t cult-like individuals associated with Linux flies in the face of my own personal experience.
They’re the people who mod down anything critical of Linux, or can’t be honest about Linux’s shortcomings. They’re people who get *emotional* over a bunch of CODE.
There is also, definitely, a segment of the Mac world who are like this. Mac users who haven’t modded me down already, I’m sure, know exactly what kind of users I’m talking about.
xBSD distributions are a little different. Most of the people who are *really into* one of the BSDs grumble under their breath (mostly at Linux users), rather than evangelize and rant. There may well be BSD zealots out there but I’ve never run into one. However, there are cults around certain personalities in the BSD world(s) – the DeRaadt-Stallman donnybrook brought them out of the woodwork.
There are *less* people, percentage wise, who are “cult like” about their OS, among Windows users. I think this is simply because as much as the term “Windows fanboy” is thrown around, most people use Windows as a path of least resistance in terms of hardware and software compatibility. Few Windows users have any problem complaining about its shortcomings. Few Windows users are actually enthusiastic about it *relative* to other things. Rather they tend to be unenthusiastic about competitive offerings. This is just my own personal experience and viewpoint so if there is some kind of Masonic Windows secret society of into Enochian magic and ruling the seventh Aethyr, let me know.
Undoubtedly, Linux meets my needs and wins by a such a wide margin for my purposes, that using anything else isn’t something I’ve seriously considered (except for FreeBSD – I flirt with it occasionally, and you won’t ever find me bashing it). I think more people should use Linux, but not *all* people. And I do think the circle-the-wagons mentality of some Linux users may hamper the cause, in the long run, of improving Linux.
When encounering problems with Linux, I have coupled together strings of profanity that astounded even me, and I am into profanity like some people are into microbrews or single malts – a connoisseur, so to speak, of the vulgar arts. So to surprise myself by a spontaneous outburst of filth, is quite a thing. (In the long run, this may be another positive side-effect on Linux. I must remember in those states of emotional pique to write things down for further use against, say, politicians and fellow motorists.)
But it’s like a stormy relationship with both hatred and passion. Yes, this metaphor is stringing out into something disturbing, but I hope I have made my point. Linux has both *enraged* me at times, and charmed me to being weak in the knees, other times. Metaphorically – and yes I do mean *METAPHORICALLY* as in EXTREMELY ABSTRACT TERMS, so don’t pick on me, Linux and I have great makeup sex.
There I said it.
But it’s certainly not perfect. Someone wrote an article once (maybe posted here), called “All operating systems suck,” and maybe, some just suck less, and maybe that’s completely relative to the user. I have to agree with this.
Way too many people, for instance, have problems with wireless networking in Linux on Laptops, the smartass “I HAVE NO PROBLEMS, I DON’T KNOW WHAT *YOUR* PROBLEM IS” retorts notwithstanding. I still dread having to deal with CUPS, ever, especially in a mixed environment with SAMBA and Windows clients. Eric Raymond’s rant about CUPS was spot on. When CUPS works, it works fairly well, but getting it to that state for me – and perhaps I am a complete moron – has been…let’s say, a challenge.
It is the fact, however, that Torvalds is a bit of a jerk, that fills most Linux users with confidence. He doesn’t fetishize his own OS, it’s not a religious thing *to him*, he just wants great technology that serves his own purposes. This is a bit of a relief, not to speak for anyone else, for those of us who have seen the bizarre political and, okay, religious freak-outs by *certain* Linux advocates on mailing lists and webboards such as this one.
What would make all of us happier, no matter which OS we use, is to stop looking at this as some kind of war for the soul of the galaxy. Many of us are practical about something like an OS, but clearly, many others are not. If we can all just admit where our OS sucks (no one has a problem trumpeting where our OS of choice succeeds), everyone’s desktop can get better.
I will say this though. Whatever my problems with it, my relationship with Linux hasn’t been a ho-pimp one. I’ve been screwed by Linux (both in the good and bad way), but I’ve never, ever *paid* for the privilege. And that’s one of the many of the things I like about it.
Speaking metaphorically, of course.
Oh god, I need some sunlight.
Agreed, but it makes me wonder why he basically showed a *shrug* response to Tivo’s attempt to lock its devices.
Linus Tolvolds has the rare option of not actually running a company based on the OS that he manages (at least the kernel for). His world is a very different world.
He also doesn’t use much desktop software. Actually he doesn’t use much software at all that most people use.
In both situations he doesn’t live in the world of a typical user of operator systems and programs and he isn’t in a corporate world where he would be forced to live in the world of Apple and Microsoft.
Microsoft has truly lost. All their great ideas are suffering greatly from lack of leadership. Bombastic buffoon Balmer is not a leader and the current state of many things including Vista and this misguided thing with Yahoo are proof of that. Until they get rid of that bombastic idiot they are going to continue to have problems.
Apple is working on replacing their file system with ZFS.
Note that Linus has had extremely little to do with file systems on Linux for a long time. He doesn’t create them, do any help on programming, and doesn’t merge them into Linux. I’m not sure he realizes how hard it is to keep things running smoothly when replacing floor panels you are standing on.
I’m obviously a Mac user but ONLY because it just works. Linux is getting closer while Microsoft is collapsing under it’s own weight.
My day job is supporting Windows systems. At home I use and play with several OSs including Mac OS X, with Linux, BeOS (hopefully soon Haiku) in virtual machines.
How hard is it to get his name right?
That’s the best you can come up with as a retort?
Wow…
Well, if they cant even get the simple basics right why should I bother coming up with something better?
Because complaining about spelling or grammar isn’t interesting for the discussion.
Spelling and grammar is a prerequisite if you want to get your point across. How can someone possibly talk about someone else when they can’t even get his name right?
Ok, sorry you are right. If someone posts some perfectly valid opinions it’s better to just complain about any spelling and grammar misstakes rather than to reply to the opinions. Yea, that makes perfect sense.
I think it’s the greatest trick the devil pulled to make people believe “Macs just work”. If I have a look at one of the best known German support forums, there are about 46.000 entries in the XP + Vista forum and 23.000 in the OSX one. seeing how there are 20x more MS installations out there, I am not so sure whether OSX really just works. Also, I cannot think about a single Apple product that had its class action suit (or was close to it) for crappy hardware. The Mac people I know ask me about the same weird issues with their machines as the MS people do. I can see no difference. Well, actually I do: For Apple controls hard + software, and claims to “just work”, things are not sooo great.
But there is probably also “20x” as many windows support forums.
Umm, try OSX Leopard server and see if it just works. In fact, go down the list at http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/features/ and find me one that works. Compared to Tiger, we could only get 1 of those features working properly (when we tried to use WPA+Radius for instance on the Airport extreme, all the clients only intermittantly connected), and only 2 or 3 we don’t use in every day operations.
And yeah, hate to break it to you mate, but failure rates on specific Mac gear, such as laptops, is enormous. I know, I used to sell them. And what really tops it off, is that the moment you speak to apple about it, instead of them helping you, they start off with a massive sales pitch for an extended warranty (which is why the forums are so full).
And Vista is heavily underrated. Well, the scheduler is crap atm, and it does have a few issues at the moment, but it will get back on track.
But I can agree on one thing, Linux, especially with KDE4 (which appears to have dumped the final Linux annoyances such as ARTS which were holding it back), definately will see a climb upward, provided people don’t start becoming too political about it.
>He also doesn’t use much desktop software. Actually he
>doesn’t use much software at all that most people use.
How do you know THAT??
He may not _develop_ desktop software, but how do you come to the idea that he doesnt use every-day software at all?
You gotta love the guy. And yeah, he speaks his mind but I would say that he is often right, at least in some way, whether or not we want to agree with him.
I’ve had people say the same thing about OS X and how much of a pain it is to develop for, yep even more closed than Windows. I would also bet that linus can give good technical reasons why HFS+ is “Utter crap” and doubt Jobs know anything about filesystems.
Gabe from Valve software said the same thing about OS X, they simply wouldn’t change OS X to accommodate the port of Half Life 2.
Isn’t it more common for a port to be changed to run on the system it’s ported to, rather than changing the system so it can run the port?
Well According to Gabe, Valve wanted OS X to make chances to accommodate it’s port of Half Life 2 simply because OS X is not good to develop for. So it’s either one or the other, I dont see game devs saying the same thing about Linux, it’s just OS X from what I read and been told is so damn closed in that respect, they even have nvidia drivers from Apple, no AA or AF controls, it’s very weak for gaming.
Edited 2008-02-08 09:48 UTC
‘Who will strike the next blow?
Our bet is on Bill Gates, as soon as he finishes re-installing Windows XP.‘
lol
That was the best line of the story…
Linus may be right about HFS+, I don’t know, I just use it. I like OS X, I don’t have a sentimental attachment to HFS or HFS+, and if ZFS is better, let’s go to it.
But I don’t think the OS is invisible in Linux; in fact, it’s more visible when you have to know a lot more to use it well. I taught myself the basics of Linux, back in the early days of Red Hat disks included with Linux books, and it was work.
Maybe recent releases of KDE or GNOME make that somewhat less of a problem, but Linux is still a mountain for non-tech people to climb, and the ones that don’t switch to Mac just endure Windows hell instead of bothering with something complex.
Linus thinks that the Linux kernel is an operating system. That’s why he always talks about “Linux” operating system, instead of “GNU/Linux”.
If you agree with Linus, then upgrading the Linux OS to a newer version is, indeed, a trivial task that is quite invisible to typical desktop users. Especially users of the “rolling release” type of distros can upgrade the Linux kernel among other package upgrades that their distro provides without paying any special attention to it. The Linux kernel gets then automatically upgraded the next time they boot their computer.
With reference to the last couple of kernel upgrades, I’d have to disagree with you. Myself and quite a few others have ended up with unusable wireless equipment after what changes have been made to the new kernel, and I can think of a few times in the past when the userland has needed fixing after an upgrade.
You’re right. KDE and Gnome do add abstraction layers that make the unterlying OS (nearly) invisible, so you can use and administrate your system no matter if it’s running Linux, BSD or Solaris. On the other hand, this kind of comfort is something you usually pay with speed and response because each additional layer does need certain amounts of CPU cycles or memory.
This is nothing bad per se, but it’s worth mentioning. Because today’s computers are extremely overpowered, this should not be a problem. 🙂
Ah yes, and problems… they occur as soon as you leave the path of KDE or Gnome, maybe you want to use a nonstandard (e. g. German) language or if you need to install something that is not part of KDE or Gnome and does not integrate with it. Of course, this is something you are completely free to do, and you can do it without major problems (just imagine this setting under “Windows” or Mac OS X).
But Linux, as well as the UNIX OSes, provide excellent means of diagnostics if a problem occurs, so if you are willing to fix the problem, you get many hints from the OS. And even if you don’t want to bother with the problem, you can assist a friendly community to help you, telling them more than just the obvious “Nothing no works!” 🙂
Maybe it is a strange fact, but… computers aren’t easy. They have never been and won’t be within the near future. Complex tasks usually involve complex operations. But still, strange people have strange expectations… 🙂
But I completely agree with you. Even today, when Linux does belong to the most advanced OSes, it’s still a bit picky about its users. Even the best GUI solutions don’t seem to be able to compensate this fact completely, but they do a good job getting more interest towards Linux and similar “excentric” OSes. Finally, KDE and Gnome still depend on the interfaces that the OS provides to them. It’s just a question how much abstraction and filterin they add, and if the (intended) complexity of the OS is or should be visible or at least be usable to the user. Dumbing everything down may be a solution for certain kinds of users, but it definitely isn’t the ultimate solution. Because if the OS should be invisible, all OSes would have to share certain standards, and I think this is something we won’t see very soon.
If you haven’t tried Linux recently, you are not really in a position to comment.
Do yourself a favour, and get hold of a recent-release Linux distribution LiveCD. It will run just fine on almost any PC including Macs (you can even get a variant for non-Intel Macs). If you really want an apples-for-apples comaprison, run it on a PC or Mac tested to work by some other party … Dell, HP, System76, Zareason, ASUS EEEPC or Lenovo can set you straight there.
A Linux distribution LiveCD will boot from nothing straight into a fully working desktop (fully populated with normal desktop applications, including Office suite) on such a michine, without you having to enter even one single click to configure it. Menus, Windows, mouse, system tray, icons & file manager will all work in a way that is entirely similar to a Windows or Mac desktop.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_cd
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Gnoppix-0.8.1beta5.png
The epitome of the “try before you buy” concept.
No learning curve whatsoever.
Oh, BTW, it will also be able to read and write to a Windows NTFS filesystem if you ask it to. Do a bit of google research about a “System rescue CD”.
http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page
Edited 2008-02-08 01:45 UTC
Please stop spreading … statements being not exactly true. Linux-based OSes are still complex, unfriendly and just like other OSes geting more and more bloat every year. Compare memory requirements of Live-CD installers of recent four versions of Ubuntu. Now it is at least 320 MB as far as I remember. And dont talk about things like Fluxbuntu, because things like that are even more useless and unfriendly and re-implementation of Windows 3.1 Program Manager-style interface could be far more useful than those “right-mouse-button” interfaces like Fluxbox.
And what changed in last ten years in user configuration ? Are you certain that I can configure – for example – USB Irda port – without invoking command line and compiling from sources ? Vistaish eyecandy in Ubuntu (unstable and bloat) and similar distros are only thing that changed in LinuxOS user experience in last ten years. And I assure you – I know what I talk about. I tried things such Red Hat 7.0 or Corel Linux those days. Did you?
So nothing changed in Linux world. Except memory and processing power requirements. Let him to use his Mac if he like it. It IS better than any Linux.
Edited 2008-02-08 13:39 UTC
Ubuntu 7.10 is far superior to OS X Leopard 10.5.1.
I don’t say that lightly, I love my Mac, but it has now been surpassed.
Windows was long ago, and Vista is playing catch-up, but Linux is light-years ahead of everything else.
Now, instead of trying to shoot down the last post with your lame attempts at shilling, you should actually do what the guy said, and download a live-cd and give it a go…
dziekuje
I already have more than 150 Linux-related DVDs and CDs in my collection. And talking about trying out – recently I tried to install DirectX 9.0c in Wine (there are some howtos about it) and it failed. Since that moment I started to wonder how can I get rid that stack in some ecological-friendly manner.
Hang them from the branches of trees.
Tie a lenght of cord from the branch and pass it through the centre of the disc.
The look amazing at night, as they move in the breeze and reflect any light available.
They make trees look good in winter when there is no leaves on them
No – what he is saying is that the kernel itself is invisible to the user (or as good as it’s possible to be). What you are referring to are userland applications, which are NOT part of the kernel.
I personally think Linus is right, hfs/+ isn’t the best file system, but it is old, and it is relatively stable. Apple already has long term intentions to use ZFS, so they know hfs etc has limitations.
Linus is absolutely spot on with is comments about proprietary operating systems – their primary design is to lock you into that platform – that is not a good way to design an operating system imho. You only have to look at how well Linux as a whole plays with other file systems, bootloaders, how well it ports to different cpu architectures etc. It’s open. OS X and Windows are not open, never have been, and never will be.
Dave
I don’t believe that FLOSS companies make apps hardware just so they can milk for support even though it may seem that way sometimes.
As a programmer you always try to get the best code/app out there to the customer. You will always have some bugs but the app has to work as stated in the Statement of Work.
It tuff sometimes when you are writing Free Software because that is always your second/third Job.
Edited 2008-02-08 00:24 UTC
–“An operating system should be completely invisible,” Torvalds said.
because you can totally make linux invisible too. just type:
sudo mkinvsbl -lnx -orly -yarly \mega\ultra\hax0r\bin /chomp
see? how easy is that?
Well, I just had to say that you got the slashes all wrong
So, it’s probably not exactly easy…
(Just so you guys know, I understand the parent was being sarcastic, I just thought I couldn’t ignore the joke there)
so THAT’S why i couldn’t get it work!
thanks for the tip!
Yeah, apparently he’s trying to run it on the file ./megaultrahax0rbin, since the \ tells bash to quote the next character. Those switches are freaky too — he uses -l three times.
Seriously, just do ‘mkinvsbl -lnxorya /mega/ultra/hax0r/bin /chomp’.
More seriously, how invisible linux is depends a lot on what you define as linux. The kernel is fine for invisibility; the only thing I’ve ever done to it is add drivers (modprobe coretemp and e1000), and you have to do that with windows too (you just use a friendly GUI and it takes longer, and you have to do it a lot more often). If you define it as GNU/linux, with most modern DTEs it’s still pretty invisible as long as you stick with normal desktop use. If you define it as everything that comes with the system, then there are bits you probably want to look at (like the window manager).
And Linus wasn’t talking about the window manager. If he wanted that to be more nearly invisible, he wouldn’t be using KDE.
Click on Synaptic and look for “OS Invisibility Applet”. Highlight and click apply. Then just right-click on the panel, Add to panel->OS Invisibility Tool”.
Click on the invisibility tool in the panel. Then click OK to confirm, and you’re done.
That’s way too hard for my grandma. Linux isn’t ready for the desktop!
The extra step of pressing “OK” to confirm was determined to be essential. My Uncle accidentally made *himself* invisible with the beta.
Well, in Windows you have to pass a UAC dialog for this. If you still make the wrong thing invisible then it’s absolutely your own darn fault.
BTW, In Windows we decided to make it require a reboot to make sure it’s applied consistently across the board. It’s an engineering tradeoff, you see… some apps might share invisibility state with the OS in “interesting” ways. If you do this without a reboot you might get data corruption and your computer could turn invisible. How does linux deal with THAT?? What good is uptime if you can’t see your computer?
*Sniff*
Modal, no doubt. (Was that breaking porcelain I just heard?)
I do wish people would stop spreading this disinformation. Under Linux the old visibility context is retained by programs already in memory, and the new visibility context only applies to programs that start after. Programs may use different visibility contexts, but *never* inconsistent versions of the same one.
Name *one* instance of this policy having resulted in serious problems.
Certain *parts* of the computer may become invisible temporarily, but it is the responsibility of the *tool* to see that critical subsystems, like the monitor, are restarted immediately. I, personally, think that the keyboard should be restarted, as well, but got voted down on the mailing list by a bunch of arrogant prima donnas who touch type.
The whole “requires a reboot to be done safely” thing is just a cop out, and an excuse used by incompetent engineers to cover up for their poor designs. And is repeated endlessly, in parrot-like fashion, by OS fanboys on sites like this.
Edit: Oh, and as to what good uptime is if the computer is invisible… even if that *did* happen (which it wouldn’t) all you’d have to do is ssh in from another machine and fix it. Unless you want to argue that one’s whole *house* could become invisible?
Edited 2008-02-09 20:29 UTC
Ok, fine… to be honest, we need the reboot to keep backwards compatibility with 16-bit programs written for the pre-invisibility PC. Do you buy that? (I’m running out of other excuses here). I bet you’re going to try pushing a VVM (Visible Virtual Machine).
Your *nix-fu is weak.
A backslash at a shell prompt is an escape sequence. The sequences \m and \h are invalid (correct me if I am mistaken), \b is not useful here and \u is at best used incorrectly. If you’re lucky the shell will ignore unknown sequences, if you’re unlucky something unexpected will happen.
“An operating system should be completely invisible,” Torvalds said.
Case in point the is the Out Of Memory Process killer. The kernel decides to kill any process that consumes too much memory. That is far from invisible.
And what would be the preferred behavior? Allow the out of control process to hang the entire OS? What happens is that the OS takes defensive measures to protect itself from dying if and only if it must. If you want a dialog to pop up asking what to do when RAM begins being eaten at an unacceptable rate you are free to write or install a program which will do so. Such popups are not the job of the kernel.
I’ve installed my Debian years ago. I’ve switched motherboard since than. Width Windows it was cast me a reinstall. With Debian/Linux it was nothing (although I’ve recompiled my kernel for some optimization).
With Windows, new softwares only work with new Windows, new Windows only work with new hardware. If you stay with old Windows, you can’t even switch doc files with others and you use an unsupported system with well known security holes.
False. Most recent Windows software works with XP, 2000, some even run on 9x. Only a very few games require Vista due to Dx 10.
Utterly false. Vista works well with less than new hardware.
Silly and false.
Windows 2000 is supported until 2010 (10 years) and XP until 2014 (13 years) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Windows#History. Name some 13 year old Linux releases that are still receiving security updates.
Proof that moderation doesn’t work on this site…(modded +4) EDIT: +5 while writing this comment
Edited 2008-02-08 06:09 UTC
“new Windows only work with new hardware.”
–“Utterly false. Vista works well with less than new hardware. ”
Actually…not completely untrue. Try installing XP on a recent Sony laptop. No drivers are available except for Vista. Surely they’re not the only brand doing that either…
Then again though, Linux wont work with new hardware in most cases. I cant run 64bit on my E8650 on linux (it dies before kernel initialisation), but can run 64bit Vista. I cant use my Auzentech prelude yet, but i can use an audigy 2, and my 802.11n pci-express wireless card is so new, apparently not many people have been feeling lucky with them.
Hahaha! I remember working on Sony laptops as a tech at a university. Nice laptops, but don’t install anything other then the shipped OS if you want full functionality. Sony loves to lock people in.
I’m glad to see nothing has changed.
Anyway, try going to the hardware manufacturer’s website for XP drivers. Vista isn’t old enough for them to drop XP support and x86 hardware isn’t that special.
That linuxish fanboy should then try to install current (2.0.x) version of OpenOffice on ten years old “Un-operating System” distribution “to share his doc files”. (Assume that such distribution even can be installed and run on modern hardware)
Windows 98 still run OpenOffice 2.x.x on P4’s just fine.
So, KDE is a DE, not an OS, but then Linux is just a kernel, not an OS either. As Sebastian Kuegler put it, “Linux [..] is just a technical implementation detail of a desktop system”. GNU/Linux tends to be considered an operating system, but some say that each particular distro is. Unlike Windows or Mac OS X, where you have the “operating system” and then third party applications that build on this system (rarely on each other), in GNU/Linux some infrastructures build on other infrastructures, all libraries are meant to be shared and command-line programs are part of the infrastructure for their GUI frontends and system maintainance scripts. So the outer limits of the OS are not so clear-cut.
But on to KDE. With features like semantic desktop (Nepomuk) integration and interactive animated widgets (Plasma), KDE 4 will steal a lot of attention from applications. Personally, I think it’s a good thing; it reminds me of what the Etoile guys are trying to do, among others. It’s interesting to see how computing worldviews collide. On one hand, there are efforts to make programs more self-contained, more like personal documents (appbundles , “.pbs” files in PC-BSD,..), on the other hand, “semantic web” technologies tend to make personal documents more like shared libraries, entangled in a web of dependencies.
And Linus seems to prefer KDE, so I wonder what he thinks of KDE4.
In case of terminology, you’re right. Linux is the kernel, GNU/Linux is the base of the OS, the Linux distributions are concrete versions of the OS, the same ways the different “Windows” OSes are.
On the other hand, the word Linux is used as a synonym for all these distributions, it’s the same way “Windows” is used as a name for alle the MICROS~1 OSes, no matter if it’s 3.11 or “Vista”.
So it is okay to use the word Linux if you’re talking about the various GNU/Linux OS implementations, and if you are talking about the kernel itself, something like using “the Linux kernel” may be a useful phrase.
I may disagree. As it looks to the user, everything is “all in one”, the OS and the applications. This generates a comfortable feeling, because you usually don’t have a PC to run an OS, instead you want to realize certain tasks where applications tend to be the appropriate tools. Internally, even Mac OS X and “Windows” have a kernel, core libraries, GUI toolkits and additional parts of software. The difference to Linux (and UNIX) OSes is that you can enter every substage of the OS, this is intended and even helpful (if you are educated enough in these matters), while “Windows” does not allow you to do “mid-level” diagnostics or interventions (changing code, recompiling).
Systems like the BSDs come with a base OS that is maintained by the OS staff (look at FreeBSD). It does not contain any additional software. This is what you usually add, or that is added by other people (look at PC-BSD). This difference is even represented in the file hierarchy: Everything in /usr/local/ is additional software, everything outside /usr/local/ is the base OS, and its substructures (etc/, bin/, lib/, share/ …) are implemented in /usr/local/ for the additional stuff.
Look and feel usually are more important than pure functionality to the average user. Only professionals don’t give much about how something looks, as long as it does not interfere with their work. 🙂
If I may use this word, the new KDE will be a good marketing helper for Linux. It will get it more attention and usage share and more oh joy oh market share.
No, Linux is an OS (Operating System). The GNU software is simply a collection of applications and functional libraries, sometimes running on top of it. Linux consists of a kernel, a bootstrap mechanism, a set of device drivers and/or a device driver programming interface, and an application programming interface. There may be one or more “application” or “user space” processes included (the canonical being the init process inherited from Unix, at least in name).
While most OSs are distributed with a set of applications — generally to assist the administration and configuration of the OS itself, add or create additional applications, and provide easier access to the functionality of the OS (e.g., interactive or batch command interpreters, functional interface libraries to simplify application development), the are not a part of the OS itself. This bundling has resulted in the misunderstanding of the term among the lay public.
Look at a serious academic course on Operating Systems (i.e.. those which are part of a Computer Science curriculum) and these other applications will not be included in the main structure of the class.
OK, so according to Tanenbaum’s “Operating Systems, Design and Implementation” you are right, except that “applications” and “user space programs” are very different concepts (he speaks of “user operating system code” meaning OS code not in kernel space):
” Computer software can be divided roughly into two kinds: system programs, which manage the operation of the computer itself, and application programs, which perform the actual work the user wants. The most fundamental system program is the operating system, which controls the computer’s resources and provides the base upon which the application programs can be written. ”
” Operating systems can be viewed from two viewpoints: resource managers and extended machines. in the resource manager view, the operating system’s job
is to efficiently manage the different parts of the system. In the extended machine view, the job of the system is to provide the users with a virtual machine that is more convenient to use than the actual machine.”
” The MINIX operating system is the code that carries out the systern calls. Editors, compilers, assemblers, linkers, and command interpreters definitely are not part of the operating system, even though they are important and useful.”
My usage of OS was along the lines of “a software infrastructure that third party application developers can target”. So, third party application developers can target Windows XP, FreeBSD 6.5, Ubuntu 8.10 and so on, and they can make calls to a particular version of a library, because they know it will be there. So it may have been more correct for me to talk about a “platform” than a OS, and then KDE is a platform (for KDE apps) , same as Windows. Java is another platform, and so on.
My point is that in KDE systems, and even more so in KDE-4, the platform is taking on ever more responsibilities from applications, in the form of new infrastructures.
But then notice that even MS and Linus are misusing this term. That is, Vista is a new platform, not just a new OS. It’s an OS bundled with other “system programs”. And when Linus says an OS should be invisible to the user, that’s a truism, because in the strictest (Tanenbaum’s) sense user interaction is outside the scope of the OS. OTOH, if he means that applications should not lose protagonism to the platform they target, then he should say “platform”, not “OS”. But then he doesn’t always agree with Tanenbaum
That was certainly my understanding in college. All this “the kernel is just a tiny piece of the whole OS” diversion seems to have sprung up over the last several years and been largely driven by the GNU Propaganda Machine.
Don’t forget Emacs, with the emacs-init and emacs-libc plugins installed. 😉
Edited 2008-02-09 01:35 UTC
Your lineup does almost describe the software sided starting mechanism of a computer. This is correct of course, because it is what the OS does in the first place.
According to DIN 44300, the OS is an ordered collection of programs with the prime objective of administration and control of the available hardware, furthermore the providing of user interfaces and standardized and documented programming interfaces, usually including editor, compiler, assembler and linker (but not neccessarily). Other important tasks are the protection from external manipulation and abuse, the execution and monitoring of programs and the provision of programs for hardware and software maintenance, for diagnostics, troubleshooting and repair.
In regards of this description, saying that Linux is an OS is completely valid.
Some “build it from scratch” Linux systems seem to implement this concept very closely. You start with a kernel and a minimalistic OS, add development tools and create the rest.
Maybe this is because of the use of the term “Linux” to identify the many different distributions as Linux OSes. These distributions do not only add a GNU userland and some maintenance utilities, they usually add complete desktop environments and collections of application software. So a Linux distribution is much more than “just an OS”.
Yes, I remember this… it has been many years ago, so forgive me my contamination by the “GNU/Linux confusion league”. 🙂
Another stupidities coming out from the mouth of Linus.
-“OS X in some ways is actually worse than Windows to program for”
Before to talk about another system he should first look at Linux. I am a mac programmer, i use Cocoa everyday, there is nothing like Cocoa in Linux that allows me to build a modern application quickly and effectively. Linux is a hell more inconvenient to program, and compared to OS X, you often end up to rewrite the wheel by yourself. And try to write a driver for Linux, then compare to OS X.
-” Their file system is complete and utter crap, which is scary.”
Well if i look to ext3 (the most widely used file system on linux as far as i could see) and compare it to HFS+, i can’t see any tremendous difference in what both file systems can do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_systems
HFS+ is nice, it has served the mac very well, yes it is not as modern as what ZFS proposed now, but ext3 is not either. I think that Linus does not really know how HFS+ works, and what it proposes, and he does not say why he thinks so, which makes his point,well…..pointless. Saying things without giving a clear explanation is what i call a troll.
– “An o/s should never have been something that people (in general) really care about: it should be completely invisible and nobody should give a flying f*** about it except the technical people.
It’s stupid – when you make a big deal about something like Vista or Leopard a lot of it is about things I don’t consider to be the operating system. It’s about the visual shell around it. The fact Microsoft tied the two together so much actually caused them problems, not just the legal problems. If you manage a thousand clients, or a hundred thousand
clients which is not at all unheard of, you sure as hell don’t want to point and click at them. In many ways Microsoft has had to fix the design mistakes they made when they thought the graphical approach should be a very intimate part of (Windows).
To Microsoft and Apple the o/s is important as a way to control the whole environment, from a marketing and money-making standpoint, to force people to upgrade their applications, and your hardware.”
What, what he is talking about? I think this is his bullshit which is scary. That does not make any sense. Invisible to what, the user? If yes, well then Linus is getting crazy. Since when Linux is invisible to the user?
Linus also says,
-” I think OS X is nicer than Windows in many ways, but neither can hold a candle to my own (Linux). It’s a race to second”
Laughable, ……
Linus is certainly a good programmer, but i think he should just shut up. Every time he talks is for saying BS or bashing something or someone else. It always like this!
I mean, i remember he says one day that Apple should not have used EFI, they should have used BIOS. Its clear, this guy is about nonsense, he does not like Apple so he just can’t say anything meaningful and constrictive when he is asked to say something about it. And this is not only about Apple, he also often comes with a ton of BS when he speaks about BSD.
And finally, i feel disappointed by such behavior, because let’s face it, a lot of ideas that are used to improve the Linux user experience is taken from what Apple does with OS X. No one can deny that fact. Just look at KDE4.
Given that point, Linus should be a little bit more grateful to Apple or at least he should have better constructive comments. Not the “I am the best” everything else sucks. Linus is just arrogant, developers of Linux are usually very arrogant, i had much better experience working with people from BSD, they are much more open to discussion with people, but also to private companies which contribute to open source.
So then sorry, but, Linus please, shut up!
For the most part I agree with your post, however doesn’t gorm + the gnustep libraries provide you with a Cocoa-like development environment?
Actually, I used Cocoa heavily in the past too, but recently, I’m changing, because it does have a few shortcomings.
I wont deny it is a beautiful way of programming. However
1) For all of Apple’s preaching about open source, Apple’s development libs are not open source.
2) None of Apple’s libs which make cocoa great are not cross platform
3) You are stuck in an OS upgrade cycle. Apple wont backport any libs to previous OS’s. So major rewrites to the new features disadvantage old customers.
I’ve started taking a look at the new QT instead and dumping Objective C, and I do like the feature set, but , only time will tell if its more efficient to code with. But I do like the idea of being able to program somethign that will work on Windows, linux and OSX at the same time
You should recheck. I’m pretty ok with kdevelop [and netbeans].
That’s often true if one doesn’t know they way’round enough.
Well, I’d have to say I [and many I know] don’t use extn for many years now. Reiser and xfs are your friends [and mine, for sure]. The high usage number most certainly comes from the newish Ubuntu [&co.] crowd.
I don’t think you could sanely argue against that line.
Many good coders are. Go check.
Edited 2008-02-08 11:00 UTC
“And finally, i feel disappointed by such behavior, because let’s face it, a lot of ideas that are used to improve the Linux user experience is taken from what Apple does with OS X. No one can deny that fact. Just look at KDE4.”
I am not sure what you mean by the Linux user experience, as Linux is just the kernel. Did you mean a lot of what KDE4 does is taken from OS X?
He is right about Apple using their OS to ‘force’ money out of people though. I have an iBook which is think is a very nice laptop and it runs OS X 10.3 which I think is a perfectly OK OS, however the safari browser that came with it could really do with an upgrade. Unfortunatly apple hasn’t been releasing releasing any more safari upgrades for my OS for quite a while. So if I want to upgrade my browser I have to pay $180 (in Sweden). There’s no reason why they couldn’t backport safari to 10.3, other than they want to force people to upgrade.
I am quite surprised at the reaction to this comment (Hakime is not unique in this regard); I read Linus as having his tongue pressed firmly into his cheek (for non-native English speakers, this means he was very aware of the irony of his comment). Linus is known for having a self-deprecating sense of humor; after all, when he developed “git” he pointed out that he has a habit of naming software after himself.
Oh f-him and his elitist attitude. Linux isn’t all that much a pleasure to work with either.
…for starting flamewars. But many fanyboys can to the same quite well too.
#include (angled bracket)stdio.h(angled bracket)
#include (angled bracket)stdlib.h(angled bracket)
#define THRESHOLD 10
int main ( int argc, char * argv [] )
{
long linux_converts ;
if ( argc != 2 ) {
printf(“Usage: %s [number-of-new-linux-installs-this-week]\n”, argv[0]);
exit(1);
}
linux_converts = strtol(argv[1], NULL, 10);
if ( linux_converts < THRESHOLD )
printf(“WARNING! Must start a FUD war and call every other OS crap!\n”);
else
printf(“Just keep the peace for now… Talk about ‘git’ some more.\n”);
return 0;
}
His comment about an Operating System:
“”An operating system should be completely invisible,” Torvalds said. “To Microsoft and Apple (it is) a way to control the whole environment — to force people to upgrade their applications and hardware.”
He’s correct. Guess what? OS X’s operating system is invisible. The Operating System isn’t messing with your workflow.
I use Debian daily as my primary OS since I have yet to pick up a Mac Pro. I just can’t really stand laptops, regardless that it has OS X on it. I’m not into that small form factor.
If his idea of being invisible is about how you can configure the s*** out of a clusterf*** of system design then he’s correct! Even GNOME and KDE which help this tired UNIX filesystem layout design that encourages [by not discouraging it] a /usr/local, /usr, /opt, /myapplication/usr/, etc. approach, and not a consistent layout, can get in the way. It looks as if KDE 4.x is shaping up quite nicely, but even it has to deal with the underlying decisions of what goes where and discover that this “make your own choice” approach is a piss poor solution to an age old problem.
You can put as much polish on a turd all you want, but it’s still a turd, underneath. Don’t misconstrue my annoyance with the layout design decisions with that of it actually being a solid operating system.
This is where Debian and it’s strict policies makes it less painful.
Ironically, this would contradict his earlier bait and switch dig at GNOME for bad UI design. Glad to see the man likes to stir up s*** and then watches the fray explode.
His Mouth and it’s many impressions:
He’s one of those guys you’d drop like a sack with his mouth. No, I’m not interested in slandering the guy. It’s just the impression he gives off when you visualize him in the school ground. I’m the guy who would come to the defense of this type of nerd, but not when his mouth has earned him the right to kiss the pavement.
Linux isn’t backing up his words:
However, 2.6.24 is constantly IN MY FACE. How? This fabulous scheduler is stomping all over Xorg’s latest release and I’m getting lock up consistently twice a week. I use Linux an average of 12 hours daily, 7 days a week. It’s always up if it’s not locking up on me. If I drop back to an earlier kernel there is harmony. If I return I can expect that it will crash with two or three days of heavy use. Pentium D 940 on a straightforward Barebones system isn’t anything fancy. 4Gb 667Mhz Ram and 320Gig SATA drive with nothing else to drag on it [basically a stock barebones system with maxed RAM] isn’t a system that runs suspect hardware.
I’m patient and have confidence that 2.6.25 will have more of the new fair scheduler figured out. Let’s hope that Xorg and the Kernel team are on the same page. The Intel GMA950 driver is a mature driver.
Debian QA:
Debian does one helluva job on QA. This “issue” started with 2.6.23 and getting worse with 2.6.24. They patch all sorts of issues that are workarounds to the general kernel. I’m very thankful this distribution exists. I’m sure Ubuntu, Kubuntu and many more are as well.
Old Linus during interview phase at Apple:
Linus still reminds me of that bitchy little s*** who didn’t like the idea that if he worked at Apple [there was a time he was discussing it] that he wasn’t anyone special and that his “monolithic” kernel wouldn’t be used.
Article Flamebait:
However, this article is a collage of comments that have taken place in the last 12 months and thrown together.
Great gig if you can get it.
I’m looking forward to the ZFS version Apple releases that works with it’s design approach to OS X and his still calling it a piece of s***.
I modded you up because your post almost sums up the situation nicely. I guess the stereotypical Mac users and Linux users are not that different after all what with modding down comments they do not agree with.
However, 2.6.24 is constantly IN MY FACE. How? This fabulous scheduler is stomping all over Xorg’s latest release and I’m getting lock up consistently twice a week. I use Linux an average of 12 hours daily, 7 days a week.
Not my experience, kernel 2.6.24 runs as good as any 2.6.x kernel on my Ubuntu 7.10 box. Neither my statement nor yours does actually say anything.
Prejudice prevails as usual.
Eugenia, thank you for the years of service.
This is my goodbye from reading OSnews.com.
1) “Linux Guru” — Linus Torvalds is not a Linux Guru. I am a Linux Guru and I am nothing like Linus. He is the CREATOR. Linux Creator is more appropriate Thom.
2) “cult of Linux” — What the hell is this about? How about cult of Apple and cult of linux bashing? Whatever, just have your fun here and I’m off to read real news–NO OPINION.
3) I’m tired of reading about how everything sucks. I’m tired of reading about Apple. Get it through your thick heads: Apple is a hardware company. Apple sucks. Just because they use Darwin and a BSD userland doesn’t mean they are “open” and “free” — FREE SPEECH AND FREE BEER. I’m tired of hearing these apple fan boys. My god, you have to PAY FOR IT, and you still campaign for them? Talk about free advertising. Stupid.
4) Thom. WTF? Been wanting to puke on your posts since you first took over. Not only do I hate your posts, but I think I hate you. And I don’t even know you. And I am not religious, so that’s strange–to hate something as if it were natural. Screw you. You ruined OSnews for me, and I’d be willing to bet the majority of other regulars who still put up with you.
Whatever. Sorry Eugenia. Goodbye.
Edited 2008-02-08 06:56 UTC
I’m pretty sure Linus is a Guru on Linux as well as being the creator. Also, that’s what the original article calls him, right or not.
As stupid as that was it’s not Thom’s invention. He’s quoting from the original article. You know, if you had tried reading it you might have picked up on that.
Any news worthy of reading is based on opinions.
“I hate you etc etc, blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda”
Dude. WTF? You need professional help.
Linux Guru eh?
Its good to see you haven’t developed an enormous ego like some computer “experts” have.
On the plus side though, obviously your leaving will allow you to spend more time polishing, and improving linux, so I thank the heavens that that a linux guru like you are willing to dedicate so much time to linux.
And seriously, speaking of fanboys, never heard anyone get so angry over saying Cult of “OS”.
Thank you Trey for all your linux knowledge contributed to society.
And yeah, lets be honest, guru, founder? If people here dont recognise linus as the founder immediately anyway, I think they are hanging out on the wrong news site anyway. It is afterall, a news site for people interested in OS development, which implies that people here do know a tiny amount about OS history.
I am loosing track of the number of times I have seen Linus put his foot in his big mouth over the last few years. What an arrogant dumb ass. Hello Linus I use OS X, Vista, XP, and yes Linux on a regular basis both at work and home and OSX and Vista are far from crap. If OSX’s file system is so horrible it sure doesn’t show it. Everything works like a champ.. in fact I have far fewer troubles with OSX and Windows than I have with Linux so get a grip and stop spouting your Linux propoganda and making Linux out to be the greatest thing since the invention of the wheel.
Oh my God! He has opinions and he’s not afraid to speak his mind! What an outrage!
Also, dont put too much weight on selected quotes in articles.
You’re confusing “works” with being good. For all we know he could be talking about the technical aspects of it.
Again, the quote is out of context.
The most competent professors I ever had in Mechanical Engineering knew the value of K.I.S.S.. This overused acronym has always been understood to mean the more competent your knowledge of Mechanical Engineering the more simple the solutions become.
An example of brilliant design has to be Reiser 4. To Hans Reiser’s demise, his forthcoming filesystem being an example of admired design [for it’s depth and breadth he wanted to address] was far overshadowed by his own arrogance–the same arrogance that clashed with the click under the Linus umbrella.
Ironically, as CS evolves we’ll be able to look back at these “superior designs” and better understand that these descriptions fall short of their intended embellishments. They aren’t that superior, they aren’t that simple and they don’t, “just work.”
I’ve worked with some of the most competent and talented engineers at NeXT and Apple. Being away from that environment has only served to reinforce how mediocre and pathetic 99% of the Industry actually is and it’s no coincidence [coincidance for the RAW fans] the industry waits on baited breath for what Apple will next pull out of it’s engineering labs.
I respect and enjoy Linux. I find it’s visionary to be right up with the worst in the Valley when they let their projects inflate their value to the rest of the Human Species.
One of the biggest luminaries of the industry, Bill Joy, is on the mark when he expressed that Computer Science would do itself a service if it would evolve into a discipline equivalent to Mechanical Engineering.
People like Peter Graffagnino at Apple is the antithesis of Linus Torvalds. I’d put that man’s genius up against him and anyone else in the Industry. He’s just one example of a professional who values the views of his co-workers, even those who don’t know a damn thing about Quartz, WindowServer and much, much more.
Dean Smith, Apple I/O Team Director and Manager epitomizes what has to be the best in any industry. His experience back in the day at SCO, then NeXT and later Apple from the kernel up has never managed to jade him and thus have him lose his luster for this industry. I’ve never met a more competent, sincere, talented and immensely knowledgeable engineer as well as manager. He bucks all the trends that engineers can’t manage other engineers. The man is a walking encyclopedia of hardware design, design specs and much more. Conversation with him made one actually get excited about learning how to write device drivers. Luckily, I had professional service clients to support and my friends got to bask in all that assembly level bliss without me.
These are two examples of professionals who if there were an Emeritus title in the industry they would get it for their overall quality as people first, professionals second and Ego, last.
Edited 2008-02-08 10:41 UTC
You know users dont see the horrible stuff that linus see’s every day, the filesystem may work fine but that dont mean it’s not crap underneath.
It’s funny how users just dont have a clue, they use their OS every day like nothing is wrong, thats the thing about bugs, not everyone hits them.
Excuse me, users don’t use an OS, they use applications to solve tasks. And as long as everything works, they praise their OS (if they know its name), but if a bug hits them, no matter if it’s an OS bug or application bug, they blame the OS and set the PC on fire. 🙂
While Linux and UNIX OSes do provide facitities to do diagnostics and interventions on every level of operations (files, applications, GUI libraries, core libraries, system libraries, kernel), other OSes hide them and prevent the user of going to much into detail. While this may be completely okay for users that do not have the knowledge to handle these delicate tools, it does not help much for those who have. “Nothing no work!” is obviously not as useful in troubleshooting as “I found that my mail client fails to create a correct POP request so I can’t read my mail.”
So while everything works, solutions for hiding and abstracting OS components are working fine. But when problems occur, troubleshooters have to rely on the access to these sublevels of operation.
Well, if the filesystem was “Utter Crap” like linus said then how would the user know, they dont go around debugging filesystems and looking at the design blaming it on that.
How come since the redesign most stories mentions “cults” and resorts to fanboy flaming just to get readership?
OSNews is losing credibility and (I bet) readers every day because of this new immature way to “report” on things. “Pile on the insults and let ‘er rip” seems to be the new OSNews way, sadly.
* in b4 OSNews was never good
Sadly when running Linux, the operating system is hardly invisible.
I rememeber one of the kernel developers said about opensolaris that it is a freak and it should be killed. Bryan Cantrill was sad about that statement. He didnt understand why his work should be killed?
Also Linus said about Solaris “but I am in active competition with it, so I hope it dies”. Not very good manner?
So this statement about other OSes being inferior and basically crap, or should be killed, what does that prove? Not good sportsmen?
Maybe Bryan should grow up and not take offense to what some random moron on the internet says.
Would you prefer he was dishonest and said the opposite?
It’s also pretty obvious that his statement is somewhat in jest.
To clarify, I might have thought the statement was obnoxious, but I certainly wasn’t sad about it. Quite the contrary, actually: it’s always refreshing when someone you believe to be a fool does you the courtesy of removing any lingering doubt…
It might not make you sad, but it does sadden me. Solaris seems like a good OS with brilliant ideas. Linux is a derivative OS with some implementation efficiencies allowed by having a completely unstable kernel ABI. The cult latches onto one and mocks the other without really understanding either.
>>Bryan Cantrill was sad about that statement. He didnt >>understand why his work should be killed?
>Maybe Bryan should grow up and not take offense to >what some random moron on the internet says.
It saddens me that when BC gets attacked by a Linux kernel developer, it really exists people thinking that BC should “grow up” and not the Linux attacker. If this is considered as an acceptable attitude among Linux people, then I understand why Linux and other Kernel devs behave as they do.
>>Also Linus said about Solaris “but I am in active >>competition with it, so I hope it dies”. Not very >>good manner?
>Would you prefer he was dishonest and said the >opposite?
>It’s also pretty obvious that his statement is >somewhat in jest.
Actually, I think that you should treat other skillfull people with respect and not mock them. A gentleman does that? I personally respect more those who are humble and helpful, than arrogant people. It is bad karma. SUN’s CEO invited Linus for dinner to talk about how Linux and cooperation, but Linus refused. I wouldnt really be surprised if Linus also mocked the CEO in his answer, which tends to be the common attitude that Linus spreads in the Linux world.
Did I say the Linux guy shouldn’t? Did you notice I called him a moron? Here’s a hint; if you take offense to what people on “the internet” say you’ll in for a very rough ride.
I personally respect people who are good.
Whats your point? He’s not allowed to refuse?
Because nothing says gentleman more than snide insinuations…
At the beginning OS was a layer between hardware and applications. Today, it has became something different. What KDE does is the right way. They have a platform that could “sit” on any OS if ported to it. Applications could run on top of a platform, and platform does not have to be OS itself. GNUstep is a step in right direction, too.
People who got used to some platform could hope to continue to work in familiar environment even if they change job or buy different computer.
Don’t make it too simple: hardware – BIOS – OS kernel – OS interfaces – OS libraries – application interfaces – … 🙂
I thing you’re not right here. I may explain:
I thing you’re confusing KDE with something like an OS. KDE is a desktop environment that adds several abstraction leyers that make only the base foundation dependend on the respective OS, and everything above the OS just relies on the abstracted and standardized interfaces.
In fact, this is a good solution and an important step within the development of Linux and UNIX OSes (not these OSes per se, because development is on KDE’s side).
Yes, it is.
This is what we’ve done from the 80s in UNIX world. Here, the CDE could be used on many UNIX systems, such as Solaris, HP-UX or AIX. Allthough its implementation was more OS-specific than KDE’s, it realized nearly the same goal: You had the same look and feel, administration tools and ways of doing things, no matter whch OS you were sitting on.
Yeah mac is not wat it used to be.
my macbook logic board is damaged in way wich prevent it from charing the battery, the result is that osX cant boot it just goe to sleep and refuses to wake. now linux and maby windows is the only os that my macbook can run.
i went to an applestor and they thougt that they would fix it for about 1000us. well for that kind of money i can get a new macbook so i went to ebay wich sales logic boards for about 200-300us that sounds more resonoble.
so i oppend up the macbook to se if it was som easy components that was damange (battery charing should not be so advanced) but there was no visible damange.
but what i did notice was that the build quality was not nice cant compare to the old powerbooks that i dissmantled.
linus torvalds ofcourse he dosent use ordinary software an icon like him can hardly surf the web like an ordinary user or edit digital video or can he ?
I’m tired of this, sincerely. I sometimes think Linus wants other people to see him as a rebel — in fact with his ‘phrases’ he speaks like a 15-year old teenager.
I don’t like Microsoft too much, I don’t like Apple too much, o.k, but if you (supposedly) are a scientific, or at least you try to think like the leader of a project the complexity of the Linux kernel, you can’t say things like “X is utter crap”. And i’m approving his right of free speech of course, but I can’t approve his frequent void phrases. Give a scientific view why X is “utter crap” (without saying that explicitly) and why a thing or theory you propose is superior. That’s science. With cult or religion we are going back 500 years, and we are talking about Computer SCIENCE.
Thank God that true scientists exist out there in the industry with intelligent views. With Linus views we are not going forward — he likes to be the Pope.
Lets be honest though, every OS has a bad guy.
FreeBSD has Theo, Windows has Ballmer, OSX has Jobs (and yeah, apparently his not the friendly type) and Linus, lets be honest, we’ve all seen some of his posts on the kernel mailing list in the past.
The trick is though to look past the leaders, and look at the general development community. I’d imagine running a OS development team could get a bit stressful (the only way to get out of work mode is turning off the computer).
I think you’re talking about OpenBSD. FreeBSD’s bad guy is… a little red daemon? 🙂
Downtime? Nooo!!! 🙂
Kernel development seems to be a situation like this: Put a group of egocentric and highly intelligent, and maybe autistic programmers into one room and see how they manage to work as a team. Must be funny. But finally, programmers that do such tricky stuff like kernel development usually are educated enough to do excellent work without tending to put up personal diatribes or tirades of FUD against their “opponents”.
Developers developers developers!
Why the hell not? He’s all of a sudden not allowed to speak his mind? It’s not in a leaders job description to be liked by everyone and never say anything controversial. It’s, however, his job to get shit done.
How do you know he didn’t?
I don’t know what planet you’re living on but here on Earth we’ve had plenty of opinionated and fscked up “true” scientists over the years. You just have to look at Jack Parsons but there are many other examples.
Or maybe you’re saying that any scientist that does not conform is not a true scientist?
Did you know Jack personally? I didn’t think so. I’d refrain from innuendo about his belief system and private life in comparison to what he accomplished by founding JPL and what he did for the space race.
There’s no need for innuendo, Jack’s beliefs are well-known. He blew himself up trying to make Crowley’s homonculous, for crying out loud!
Say what? When did i make any “innuendo” about his beleif system or question his accomplishments? Is it a secret what his beliefs were or what his opinions were?
A little defense, arent we?
Who will strike the next blow?
Our bet is on Bill Gates, as soon as he finishes re-installing Windows XP.
rofl.
what should apple change to
NTFS ?
RaiserFS ?
ZFS ?
UFS ?
someting else ?
ZFS seems to be the only obvious choice. It also seems likely to happen.
NTFS? Never.
Reiser4? No.
ZFS? Yes.
UFS. No. NeXTstep was UFS.
From reading those outbursts by Linus, it appears that he has a car and his world is limited to sit in driver seat, start engine and then do nothing. He will never understood complexities of the road, weather, marketing it takes to build a successful car. He will be idling engine forever without driving a car for 10 ft.
this again proves why linux as OS is not getting any attention. Afterall it is made by basement nerds for the basement nerds..
nothing will put linux on desktop until we get rid of Linus as kernel developer and put someone with vision outside dark basement..
I bash Linux every day- especially f–ked up *buntu distributions- so many broken features that it is just a disgrace for Linux community.
Both Leopard and Vista have some pretty bad bugs on just doing basic everyday stuff and this is from so called industry leaders of their field.
For posting yet an other factually incorrect flame bait on osnews.
Well done…
I know osnews is just a hobby to you, but that shouldn’t mean that all journalistic ethics should go over board, should it?
Linus Torvalds is entitled to his opinion as much as the next person, but with that being said I find what he said is hypocritical at best arrogance at worse.
Now sure, Windows and Mac OS X do have their problems – they’re commercial products and when being developed decisions have to be made about the commercial viability of a particular endeavour. If a change in the system costing $20,000 in labour hours produces a 1% improvement in threading performance – is it worth spending the money on given higher priorities exist?
I also find it funny that Linus is more than happy to do a sermon on the mount in regards to the deficiencies in other operating systems and yet completely fails to acknowledge the flaws in his own. When the flaws are pointed out he either shouts them down, ex-communicates them or claims its a feature (anyone remember his, quite frankly, pathetic argument for not having a stable driver API/ABI?).
I am willing to admit freely that Linus is merely the kernel developer, he isn’t involved with distributions or any other function but his role of platform boasting can’t be divorced form simple realities. There is a dearth of third party commercial software vendors for the desktop (to any troll out there, Oracle ISN’T a desktop application no matter how much you like to chant that it is), and there is even less involvement by third party hardware vendors willing not only to provide the full hardware specifications but to also provide the software which make their hardware useful.
Therefore, to get up and condemn other operating systems whilst convinently ignoring the flaws in ones own product and ecosystem, I think that Linus is in the running to win “Arrogant Prick Of The Year” prize, sponsored by Theo Raadt.
Edited 2008-02-08 20:41 UTC
For marking as -5 every commented that dares to be critical of you for posting yet an other factually incorrect flamebait.
How, uhm, grown up…
So, be that as it may, how long will it take for you to correct this false story?
Seems like the story has changed right before our eyes, reminds me of our UK press reporting something that may not be true, wrong or turns out to me false later. To late, damage done.
Edited 2008-02-08 21:30 UTC
Linus is full of crap. He let his ego and money get to him. You do not “force” people to upgrade, it’s called progress. Like old cars that wear out, software becomes irrelevant over time. I can see his argument for task specific software, but when you talk about desktops and multimedia old software just doesn’t cut it. Perhaps this is why Linux is lacking in the multimedia world currently. (Without Xiph I don’t know where we would be).
“(But) OS X in some ways is actually worse than Windows to program for. Their file system is complete and utter crap, which is scary.”
This maybe true, but he fails to explain why. Anyone other than the venerable Linus Torvalds would be held to a greater standard and require to explain why they felt that way, lest be written off as a troll spouting flame bait.
Why is it crap Linus? Explain yourself.