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There's also the more obvious difference in design. Hurd was supposed to be a micro-kernel whereas Linux was a much more straight forward monolithic kernel. One
by 59nadir 13y ago
There's also the more obvious difference in design. Hurd was supposed to be a micro-kernel whereas Linux was a much more straight forward monolithic kernel. One requires the inter-operation of lots of systems whereas one is just one big system that can just keep track of everything inside instead.
I'm pretty sure no one could build a functioning micro-kernel that'd be useful and able to compete at the time the Hurd project was still relevant. Then again, maybe I'm just making excuses for the FSF.
- dllthomas 13y agoWell, that's more or less what I'd meant by 'focused on "working" rather than "right"' - GNU was trying to do what theoreticians suggested made the most sense; Linus was trying to do what had worked before. Both have pros and cons, but the latter is "safer" and certainly seems to have paid off here.