4 ms·

If Linus had done that we would not have Linux.

by JaimeThompson 6y ago

jandrese 6y ago
Huh? Linus targeted the x86 architecture.
- snvzz 6y ago
  Which was not a common target for UNICES.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - jandrese 6y ago
    But it was a common hardware platform of the day.
- JaimeThompson 6y ago
  Correct as did other Unix operating systems so if Linux had stayed in his "sandbox" Linux would have been something much different if it even existed at all.
drewg123 6y ago
DEC Alpha was the first non-x86 platform supported in Linux (and in FreeBSD, where I did a lot of the work). Linux was doing just fine in 1994 when DEC gave Linus an alpha at the Boston USENIX. The key fact is that, in the mid 90s, DEC Alpha was the fastest thing around, and poised to take over the world. It was expected to be the future (until it was killed by corporate incompetence and itanic). That's why I worked on FreeBSD support, and why Linus worked on Linux support. Alpha was also valuable because it was one of the first 64-bit platforms, and found a lot of pointer/int/long bugs on both systems. There is a big difference between supporting what you expect to be the future of computing to what you know to be the long dead past.
- cesaref 6y ago
  Yeah, I was involved in a large Ada project running on 4 socket Alpha servers back in the early 90s. It was a great platform (OSF/1 anyone?) and was very fast and powerful for it's day. As for bugs, I seem to remember that it had a rather different cache coherency model to Intel, and as you said, was strict about memory alignment.
- trasz 6y ago
  Some architectures are useful even if one can already tell they are probably not the future. For FreeBSD, sparc64 was important, because you could get multiprocessor sparc64 machines easier (cheaper) than x86 with the same CPU count, even if they were slower; this made it possible to do work on scalability sooner. Now the same is happening with POWER9/10.
- JaimeThompson 6y ago
  The sandbox in this instance would be Linux creating a Unix compatible operating system not that Linux supported multiple platforms.
mumblemumble 6y ago
I'd submit that Linux being more choosy about what architectures it supported was a big factor in why it overtook, and ultimately surpassed, the incumbent open source Unixes.
LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
So what? Then the BSDs would have been used instead. Or something else.

If Linus had done that we would not have Linux.

jandrese 6y ago

Huh? Linus targeted the x86 architecture.

snvzz 6y ago
Which was not a common target for UNICES.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- jandrese 6y ago
  But it was a common hardware platform of the day.
JaimeThompson 6y ago
Correct as did other Unix operating systems so if Linux had stayed in his "sandbox" Linux would have been something much different if it even existed at all.

drewg123 6y ago

DEC Alpha was the first non-x86 platform supported in Linux (and in FreeBSD, where I did a lot of the work). Linux was doing just fine in 1994 when DEC gave Linus an alpha at the Boston USENIX. The key fact is that, in the mid 90s, DEC Alpha was the fastest thing around, and poised to take over the world. It was expected to be the future (until it was killed by corporate incompetence and itanic). That's why I worked on FreeBSD support, and why Linus worked on Linux support. Alpha was also valuable because it was one of the first 64-bit platforms, and found a lot of pointer/int/long bugs on both systems. There is a big difference between supporting what you expect to be the future of computing to what you know to be the long dead past.

cesaref 6y ago
Yeah, I was involved in a large Ada project running on 4 socket Alpha servers back in the early 90s. It was a great platform (OSF/1 anyone?) and was very fast and powerful for it's day. As for bugs, I seem to remember that it had a rather different cache coherency model to Intel, and as you said, was strict about memory alignment.
trasz 6y ago
Some architectures are useful even if one can already tell they are probably not the future. For FreeBSD, sparc64 was important, because you could get multiprocessor sparc64 machines easier (cheaper) than x86 with the same CPU count, even if they were slower; this made it possible to do work on scalability sooner. Now the same is happening with POWER9/10.
JaimeThompson 6y ago
The sandbox in this instance would be Linux creating a Unix compatible operating system not that Linux supported multiple platforms.

mumblemumble 6y ago

I'd submit that Linux being more choosy about what architectures it supported was a big factor in why it overtook, and ultimately surpassed, the incumbent open source Unixes.

LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago

So what? Then the BSDs would have been used instead. Or something else.