4 ms·

Got a chuckle out of me, but if you equate processes to human lives you get an infinite amount of absurdity anyway, making this a rather meaningless analogy.

willvarfar 12y ago
Do you think that as Linux gets used in medical, military and home contexts perhaps lives may really be at risk?
- stingraycharles 12y ago
  Then you enter the realm about hardened / realtime systems, where guarantees about eg. execution time are required. Those usually require a different aproach to kernel development anyway -- I do know there is something like RT Linux, but I have no idea how big it is.
  - justincormack 12y ago
    Real time Linux is lacking funding, and is not being developed much any more [1] [1] https://lwn.net/Articles/617140/ https://lwn.net/Articles/617140/
  - TickleSteve 12y ago
    Although there are versions of Linux that are hard-realtime, the approach they take is to have a proper RTOS "underneath" Linux and effectively run Linux as a non realtime process. Linux as a whole is far too large and dynamic for deterministic response. Linux does get used a lot for soft realtime applications tho, especially in the military world.
  - xorcist 12y ago
    Not necessarily. Most systems within the medical context does not have any realtime requirements, after all. A watchdog restart may be only a nuisance. It would be nice of embedded systems engineers thought about things such as memory overcommit, but in real life they are as most of us: Stuck with old code bases that someone built right before leaving.
- drzaiusapelord 12y ago
  You probably wouldn't, and shouldn't, use Linux for RTOS duties. This is why we see Linux overwhelmingly on mobile phones, servers, etc and not powering your pacemaker, spacecraft, or nuclear plant. NASA uses VxWorks for a reason. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_embedded_computer_systems_on_board_the_Mars_rovers#Performance_comparisons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_embedded_computer...
sp332 12y ago
It's called hyperbole. The point isn't that processes are like human lives, it's to point out that killing processes is the wrong strategy.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

willvarfar 12y ago

Do you think that as Linux gets used in medical, military and home contexts perhaps lives may really be at risk?

stingraycharles 12y ago
Then you enter the realm about hardened / realtime systems, where guarantees about eg. execution time are required. Those usually require a different aproach to kernel development anyway -- I do know there is something like RT Linux, but I have no idea how big it is.
- justincormack 12y ago
  Real time Linux is lacking funding, and is not being developed much any more [1] [1] https://lwn.net/Articles/617140/ https://lwn.net/Articles/617140/
- TickleSteve 12y ago
  Although there are versions of Linux that are hard-realtime, the approach they take is to have a proper RTOS "underneath" Linux and effectively run Linux as a non realtime process. Linux as a whole is far too large and dynamic for deterministic response. Linux does get used a lot for soft realtime applications tho, especially in the military world.
- xorcist 12y ago
  Not necessarily. Most systems within the medical context does not have any realtime requirements, after all. A watchdog restart may be only a nuisance. It would be nice of embedded systems engineers thought about things such as memory overcommit, but in real life they are as most of us: Stuck with old code bases that someone built right before leaving.
drzaiusapelord 12y ago
You probably wouldn't, and shouldn't, use Linux for RTOS duties. This is why we see Linux overwhelmingly on mobile phones, servers, etc and not powering your pacemaker, spacecraft, or nuclear plant. NASA uses VxWorks for a reason. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_embedded_computer_systems_on_board_the_Mars_rovers#Performance_comparisons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_embedded_computer...

sp332 12y ago

It's called hyperbole. The point isn't that processes are like human lives, it's to point out that killing processes is the wrong strategy.

deleted 12y ago
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