*BSD News Article 19737


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From: mike@ichips (Mike Haertel)
Subject: Re: Why would I want LINUX?
In-Reply-To: Martin.Kraemer@mch.sni.de's message of 19 Aug 1993 08:22:09 GMT
Message-ID: <MIKE.93Aug19115915@pdx800.jf.intel.com>
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References: <55270001@hplvec.LVLD.HP.COM> <24gnu4$skm@nz12.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de>
	<24m779$b0h@isolar.Tujunga.CA.US>
	<BDC.93Aug15214130@transit.ai.mit.edu>
	<24rbb5$t51@hrd769.brooks.af.mil> <24vd7h$frk@horus.mch.sni.de>
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 18:59:14 GMT
Lines: 22

In article <24vd7h$frk@horus.mch.sni.de> Martin.Kraemer@mch.sni.de (Martin Kraemer) writes:
>hard disk with a size multiple of what you need for Linux. When I first
>installed  Linux (Oct/Nov. 1992), it was so  slender that you could get
>all  the base utilities including cc,  emacs and kernel sources into as
>much as a 32 MB hard disk!

This has, alas, been fixed in recent versions of Linux, which seems to
have come down with a very serious case of The Bloat.  I remember a
time (early 1992) when the Linux kernel was under 25K lines of
code.  The 0.99.12 kernel, at 118K lines, is nearly five times
the size.  It does not offer five times the functionality.

Similarly, things like the full SLS release have really bloated out--I
helped a friend install SLS last fall, and the full installation with
X came in at around 40 Megs.  Just recently tried again, and got
upwards of 80 megs.  Yeeow.

(NetBSD kernel: 195K lines.  Linux is rapidly catching up.  I predict
it will pass NetBSD in bloatedness within 1 year.)
--
Mike Haertel <mike@ichips.intel.com>
Speaking for myself, not Intel.