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Off topic, but I wonder if Stallman regrets that the FSF team didn't develop a working kernel for GNU early in the history of the project, perhaps at the same t

Off topic, but I wonder if Stallman regrets that the FSF team didn't develop a working kernel for GNU early in the history of the project, perhaps at the same time as the development of GCC? The existence of a GNU kernel would have obviated the bundling of Linux with GNU user space software.

aidenn0 7y ago
Linux could not have been made by GNU early on, if for no other reason than it was not obvious that the 386 based PC was going to be the dominant platform even in 1991 when Linus started the project. Making a portable OS kernel is a much larger project than making a non-portable kernel, and the focus on 386 based PCs allowed for getting something useful up and running quickly.
- indymike 7y ago
  I suppose if you are looking at the "workstation" tier, the humble 386 was not an obvious choice... Most workstations (i.e. NeXT, Sun, IBM, SGI) already had a Unix based OS, so likely creating another one wouldn't have been as fun. 386 boxes came with DOS or Windows... and it Unix was $tupid expensive. The 386 was a runaway winner, and it was pretty clear from the day Compaq released the first 386 powered PC that 386 was the future. It allowed virtualization of 8086 apps (so you could multitask with existing software, which was a huge selling point at the time). It had virtual memory, a critical feature when lots of RAM was 4MB. It also had preemptive multitasking and allowed you to have a flat memory model (even though the 386 memory model was segmented). All the things you need to make a really nice Unix like OS. Other options were either an order of magnitude less popular (i.e. use Motorola 68030 based computer) or technically limiting (use a 286 based PC which had some brutal limitations with memory access).
  - aidenn0 7y ago
    Minix ran on both 68k and 286 based machines before Linux was started. Minix ran on the 8088 even. IIRC Linus specified the features of the 386 that you mention as being a reason for not just porting Minix; Minix wanted to be system agnostic so would not easily be made to be performant on the i386. IMO, focusing on a single system allowed for rapid development of features, and as you say the 386 was not an obvious choice for "workstations" which is probably where RMS was thinking.

aidenn0 7y ago

Linux could not have been made by GNU early on, if for no other reason than it was not obvious that the 386 based PC was going to be the dominant platform even in 1991 when Linus started the project. Making a portable OS kernel is a much larger project than making a non-portable kernel, and the focus on 386 based PCs allowed for getting something useful up and running quickly.

indymike 7y ago
I suppose if you are looking at the "workstation" tier, the humble 386 was not an obvious choice... Most workstations (i.e. NeXT, Sun, IBM, SGI) already had a Unix based OS, so likely creating another one wouldn't have been as fun. 386 boxes came with DOS or Windows... and it Unix was $tupid expensive. The 386 was a runaway winner, and it was pretty clear from the day Compaq released the first 386 powered PC that 386 was the future. It allowed virtualization of 8086 apps (so you could multitask with existing software, which was a huge selling point at the time). It had virtual memory, a critical feature when lots of RAM was 4MB. It also had preemptive multitasking and allowed you to have a flat memory model (even though the 386 memory model was segmented). All the things you need to make a really nice Unix like OS. Other options were either an order of magnitude less popular (i.e. use Motorola 68030 based computer) or technically limiting (use a 286 based PC which had some brutal limitations with memory access).
- aidenn0 7y ago
  Minix ran on both 68k and 286 based machines before Linux was started. Minix ran on the 8088 even. IIRC Linus specified the features of the 386 that you mention as being a reason for not just porting Minix; Minix wanted to be system agnostic so would not easily be made to be performant on the i386. IMO, focusing on a single system allowed for rapid development of features, and as you say the 386 was not an obvious choice for "workstations" which is probably where RMS was thinking.