[ncolug] Re: Minix3
- From: David Fierbaugh <david@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: ncolug@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 08:22:52 -0500
On Thursday 10 November 2005 20:43, Henry Keultjes wrote:
> nor thern wrote:
> >what is the smallest debian replacement for minix?
> >
> >
> >
> >That's like asking which apple is the best to replace a specific type of
> > orange like a Jaffa.
>
> If you are a kernel hacker you can cut Linux down significantly,
> probably close to the size of Minix3, but you would probably have to
> remove about 95% of the drivers to do so and that would severely limit
> its use to the specific drivers that were left. A regular use would not
> be able to add or remove drivers.
>
This is not something I would expect 'Joe User' to do, but as you'll see, this
takes no programming knowledge, and is not kernel hacking by any but the
largest stretch of the imagination.
Anyone who's never configured or compiled a kernel before should try this:
Open a terminal (shell window/command prompt). Your prompt should be a dollar
sign, do the following:
$ su (su changes user to root)
password (enter the root password)
#cd /usr/src/linux (change to the kernel source directory)
#make menuconfig (this will start the curses GUI kernel
configurator)
If you've never seen this, then you have no idea how amazingly simple it is to
recompile a kernel with out all the unnecessary drivers. Unless you know what
you're doing (or really want to learn), I wouldn't save the configuration on
exiting. If you really want to learn about this, google for a distro specific
howto on kernel configuration.
> As all of you know, I am *not* a hacker and I have used loadable device
> drivers, possible with a micro-kernel architecture like Minix3, for
> fifteen years. So *as a user* I am used to having a very small core
> system and being able to customize it for my own needs.
>
> Is it fair to say that the average user cannot do that with Linux?
The 'average user' simply picks the distro that closest meets their needs.
There are any number of tiny linux distros that would seem to meet this.
>
> Therein lies Linux' biggest problem. The fact that hackers, as most of
> you are, are capapble of doing with Linux whatever you need to get done
> and all of you love that. The average user, however, has absolutely no
> interest in going there. They just want to run their applications.
> They just want to drive a car without having to know how to engineer and
> build one.
>
I think I've said this before, but oh well....
My mother has been using linux for about 2-3 years now. Not as a hacker, but
as a simple user. She does with it, exactly what she was doing in windows
(email, web, word processing, etc) only she doesn't have the drawbacks of
windows. Now if we can only get her to understand that you DO NOT turn the
computer off by flipping the switch on the surge protector.......
It's now easier to do Linux install (depending on the distro) than it is to do
a windows install.
> To that you may give the argument that learning Linux is no more
> difficult than learning windoze. That may be true. All I know is that
> both of them are way more complex than they should be, way more complex
> than I am willing to comprehend so I keep looking for seemingly better
> solutions . . . like Minix3.
>
> If Open Source is going to gain serious market share on windoze, the
> offering has to be greatly simplified. You can do that by feeling sorry
> for dumb asses like me and figuring out how to do what needs to be done
> far simpler. As a sort of proof of that, look at Linux' huge server
> market share, and the fact that servers are the domain of the experts,
> versus Linux' puny desktop market share which is the domain of average
> Joe's like me.
>
> That also works against Linux from a perception standpoint. Things like
> Google run almost exclusively on Linux but that never enters the mind of
> the average Joe. All they see is all those desktops running windoze.
>
Most user's wouldn't know that they weren't using windows.
Example:
At the WooLUG install fest a few months ago, a couple of high school girls
came into the coffee shop we were at, they asked if they were allowed to use
the demo computers we had set up. After they'd been on them for a little
while, I went over and asked what they thought. They had streaming music,
instant messaging, email etc all going with no problem. The first comment one
made, "How come there's no pop-ups?" They were completely unimpressed when I
tried to explain that they weren't using windows. They couldn't care less if
it were windows or linux, it just worked, and they were happy with that. One
of them was using gnome and the other KDE, and both found everything they
needed.
> Henry
>
>
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