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"Operating system" is a pretty technical and well defined term, you just might not be old enough to know it. :) An operating system is the core that is responsi
by dsl 13y ago
"Operating system" is a pretty technical and well defined term, you just might not be old enough to know it. :) An operating system is the core that is responsible for operating the underlying hardware of a computing device, upon which everything else is built. If you aren't concerning yourself with device drivers and task scheduling, you aren't building an operating system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system
- Rhapso 13y agoI can see an argument that a system like this could be an "operating system" for a high level p2p system. Large swaths of what they are doing are undisclosed, but the object and user management system would make a decent theoretical operating system for decentralized p2p applications.
- haberman 13y agoYou have demonstrated that you subscribe to the "kernel" definition of an OS. By that definition, calling Windows or OS X an "operating system" is also an abuse, because 99% of what ships on those installation DVDs has nothing to do with device drivers or task scheduling. Also, by your definition, Android and Slackware Linux are the same "Operating System" because they share the same kernel and drivers. Which is exactly my point. This term is in common use and means different thing to different people.
- dsl 13y agoYou have demonstrated you just want to argue.
- eevilspock 13y agooh the irony!
- haberman 13y agoWhat? This thread started when someone thought that people need stop using this term "incorrectly." I just pointed out that we should take it easy because the term is kind of overloaded in common usage.
- haberman 13y agoSorry if my reply came off as snarky, your post felt a bit condescending and seemed to ignore the content of the point I had previously made.
- kllrnohj 13y ago> Also, by your definition, Android and Slackware Linux are the same "Operating System" because they share the same kernel and drivers. Well, no, they don't. Android still uses a slightly modified Linux kernel, and there is zero overlap in the drivers. Also they have fundamentally different approaches to task & memory management at the kernel level. Pedantics aside it's clear that Avatar is not an OS, not even with the most generous and broad definition. At least not with what little they've said so far. Because what they have so far in their diagrams and minimal technical info is yet another JavaScript framework paired with yet another set of web services around user authentication.
- hnisnotreddit 13y agoAndroid has been using mainlined for a few kernel revisions now.
- kllrnohj 13y agoNope. You can boot Android using a mainline kernel, but there's a lot of stuff that's missing/broken. Like power management. The Android Mainlining project continues to trudge onward, it's not complete. There's a decent chunk of stuff sitting in staging as well that hasn't been accepted by mainline, but still more that hasn't even gotten to staging. There's also a few things where mainline rejected Google's version and provided an alternative, but Android was never changed to use the new thing (Alarms/Timers fall into this case)