Am Mittwoch, 18. Februar 2004 21:55 schrieb Enrico Weigelt:
You shouldn't really care about this [flaming].
I care about it, if I intend to eventually get improvements in (which was the prerogative of the 'improve linux then' idea). as for kgi, I just ignore linux - other XFree86-using systems are interested in jumping ship and eventually linux will need to face the decision again - under different circumstances. that option wouldn't exist for NT-on-Linux though due to its linux-specific nature.
Well, for me it doesnt matter. I've no trouble with patching the kernel. On many larger projects it is quite normal (i.e. the MUA mutt has many "inofficial" patches, which are good but not yet included in the main distributions). Often it is because the maintainers feel the patches are not "good enought" for getting into main branch. Thats no problem for me - and no real reason for starting completely from scratch :)
they just want to extend some parts of the MUA. ReactOS otoh couldn't rely on stable behaviour (or APIs) within linux to build a feature-by-feature, API-by-API copy of WinNT - quite a difference. and not being able to follow the kernel in its track is a bad thing, too - see the 2.6.3/2.4.25 release with patches for exploits as example - do you really want to isolate all these all the time as you're unable to just merge with it? that's a lot of work :)
What's wrong with the memory management and the vm subsystem ?
hmm.. rewritten way to often to rely on it? (even within "stable" kernel series)
What's wrong with the filesystem ?
different semantics from NT filesystems. where are streams, OIDs, ...?
What's wrong with the socket interface and the networking stuff ?
no problem, which is why it might be copied over.
I can understand, if you dont like Xwindow - for just local applications its perhaps a little bit bloated, but if you gonna use remote displays, you dont really want RDP ...
X isn't bloated, au contraire, it lacks quite a bunch of features. it's client/server design is pretty solid (and damn fast) though.
what I have a problem with is the architecture of their (and kernel's) drivers
Ah, several different vm subsystems. There was something for some other unices, but I dont know if its still in the kernel.
icbs, and no, it should be gone. also, show me that it's semantically similar to the way NT does it
the current ROS design is pretty much modelled after NT - which makes further compatibility easier. that wouldn't have been possible with a linux based system (except if it would look the same by now, which means that only bootstrapping were affected)
patrick mauritz