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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!lucy.swin.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au!news.apana.org.au!cantor.edge.net.au!news.mira.net.au!news.netspace.net.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!news.syd.connect.com.au!phaedrus.kralizec.net.au!news.mel.aone.net.au!grumpy.fl.net.au!news.webspan.net!newsfeeds.sol.net!hammer.uoregon.edu!zephyr.texoma.net!uunet!in3.uu.net!136.142.185.26!newsfeed.pitt.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!sumner+ From: Gerry S Hayes <sumner@CMU.EDU> Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.unix.bsd.misc Subject: Re: Linux vs BSD Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1997 02:40:34 -0500 Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 48 Message-ID: <0n0LDm200YUg0bsyE0@andrew.cmu.edu> References: <32DFFEAB.7704@usa.net> <5dncoa$op@josie.abo.fi> <5dphhs$eoi@cynic.portal.ca> <E5G0z9.9Kz@bigbird.telly.org> <5dqmk2$oj2@cynic.portal.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: po8.andrew.cmu.edu In-Reply-To: <5dqmk2$oj2@cynic.portal.ca> Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.misc:157874 comp.unix.bsd.misc:2464 cjs@cynic.portal.ca (Curt Sampson) writes: > > No, they do not. With typical Linux shortsightedness, you've got > a specific solution for Linux, but not general solution. > It's not Linux shortsightedness; any of the classic operating systems texts (Tanenbaum, for instance) will define the OS as something much closer to "Kernel" than "kernel + bash + ls + cp + mv + emacs +..." If it's shortsighted (and I don't think it is), then the shortsightedness has been around for eons and predates Linux by a long shot. It's only recently that I've seen people like RMS trying to incorporate random applications into the definition of an OS. > You've taken two general terms, `kernel' and `OS,' and erased any > distinction between them. 'Kernel' is (in general and by my definition) smaller than 'OS'. The OS is the abstraction from hardware; the kernel is a specific administrative, priviledged program which manages interactions between other userspace programs and may have additional features. On a Linux system, there is generally at least one userspace device driver which I would classify as part of the OS; XFree, MetroX, AccelX, MGR, and SVGAlib come to mind. Microkernel systems blur this distiction even more. > As long as the rest of the world calls Microsoft Windows an `operating > system,' rather than an `operating system with a set of associated > utilities' or whatever your shorter term is for that, you've lost > this battle. Windows is both an OS and an OS with associated utilities, depending on the context. If I am programming a Windows application, that generally means I use the Windows API; it doesn't mean I require that solitaire, program manager, or the Win95 UI be present. Plenty of people that I know replaced all of the bundled Windows utils (like progman) with others; they still said (rightfully, IMO) that they were running Windows. Just because they changed the UI radically doesn't mean the OS is different. Init, bash, and most of the GNU utils are only one possible UI for a Linux system. Cordially, Sumner -- Respond by post or email, but please don't CC: postings to me; my mailbox is already quite full.