9fans archive / 1998 / 11 / 41 /    prev next

From: Digby Tarvin digbyt@acm.org
Subject: [9fans] DMR's OS :(
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1998 19:32:52 +0000 (GMT/BST)

>
>But I should add that around here, we have also seen much Linux
>instability.  I suspect that, like most systems including ones I have built,
>Linux is stable until it gets used in a new way, usually by a new
>user.  Even so, the claims of Linux's perfection seem untenable
>given my experiences with it in several versions on a variety of
>hardware.
>
>And that is my last word on the subject here; this is 9fans.
>
I don't see anything surprising here. If you are coming from
Plan9, your expectations are high and Linux seems flakey.

If, like a majority of Linux users, you are a Windows refugee,
two commands in a row without a crash and you are ecstatic.

My impression is that the BSD derivatives are a little more
stable because they are more conservative. Linux has a somewhat
more adventurous, bohemian development philosophy, for which
there is a slight robustness penalty. Even so, I can believe
that many people use it for years without ever seeing a problem.

The only mystery is why Rob would have let someone load a clone
of an ancient Bell Labs operating system on his PC in the
first place :-)

Regards,
DigbyT
-- 
Digby R. S. Tarvin                                              digbyt@acm.org
http://www.cthulhu.dircon.co.uk