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IMHO the kitchensink like approach of adding more features to Linux misses the point of the simplicity of plan9. Representing & accessing resources as file syst
by bakul 4y ago
IMHO the kitchensink like approach of adding more features to Linux misses the point of the simplicity of plan9. Representing & accessing resources as file systems was the real insight. If the OS provides N different ways of doing something, it has to continue supporting that which has a real cost. I once compared compiling plan9 & Linux from scratch on the original RaspberryPi. 1 minute versus many hours. Granted that the Linux kernel does a lot more and supported a few more devices on 'pi and plan9 pushes more drivers in the user space but even compiling everything on it took about 4 minutes. That included Ghostscript and two editors and the windowing system and more.
- zozbot234 4y agoLinux has to support its kernel syscall interface, so that Linux-native programs continue to run. Pretty much everything else is up for grabs - but if you want native Linux software to interoperate within a more Plan9-like system, adding features that allow for implementing/managing these kernel-provided interfaces in userspace is helpful.