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I say if it's not running as the kernel, it's not an OS. Otherwise you could "boot to" any terminal app. Nano? OS. Cat? OS. Echo? Believe it or not, OS. Good
by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
I say if it's not running as the kernel, it's not an OS.
Otherwise you could "boot to" any terminal app.
Nano? OS. Cat? OS. Echo? Believe it or not, OS. Good grief.
- randomdata 2y agoWhat we do know is that the S in OS stands for system. A kernel alone does not a system make. There needs to be other components to round out an entire system. Why does Emacs not fit the bill?
- kbolino 2y agoPID 1 has some unique responsibilities. In particular, any process that gets orphaned when its original parent exits is automatically reparented by PID 1, and so the process running as PID 1 must watch for unexpected SIGCHILD and clean up the zombies with waitpid or similar.
- striking 2y agoOne could argue (many have, in the form of a tedious copypasta) that Linux is not the operating system because an operating system needs both a kernel and a userland. Why wouldn't `nano` count as a userland in the same way as anything provided by a typical distro today?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y agoWell, cat and echo can't run other programs, so no they wouldn't qualify. I'd have to check the nano docs to see if it can spawn other programs, but I'd be shocked if it's any good at it. In stark contrast, emacs can and is good at running programs, including interactively in terminals that it manages itself. I'm happy to agree that the kernel is a big part of the OS, but a kernel alone does not an OS make.