udev reorders assignment [was Re: Solved Debian update - keyboard responsive, Lennart Sorrenson not so much]

[Walter Dnes]

On Thu, Nov 03, 2011 at 11:31:05AM -0400, Christopher Browne wrote
> 
> It was developed at Vrije Universiteit by Andrew Tanembaum.  No
> material Toronto connections.
> 
> There's a connection with Linux, in that Linus Torvalds created Linux
> as something of a followup to Minix, as he was keen on hacking on
> 80386 stuff, and Tanembaum wasn't keen on that kind of
> non-portability.

  There were a few disagreements between Torvalds and Tanenbaum.
Tanenbaum criticized the linux kernel for being too monolithic, while
Torvalds thought Minix was stupid for blocking and being non-responsive
whilst doing disk IO.  It boiled down to different goals for different
audiences.  Torvalds wanted an OS that actually worked for everyday use,
whilst Tanenbaum wanted a simple introductort "my first OS" that
university students could understand.

  During the SCO fiasco Tannenbaum gave some more details.  See
http://www2.technobabble.com.au/article-78--0-0.html for Andy
Tanenbaum's Notes on the 'Who wrote Linux' Kerfuffle.  He had no
resentment that Linux took the spotlight from Minix.  If anything, he
was glad to see an end to...
> 200 e-mails a day (at a time when only the chosen few had e-mail at
> all) saying things like: "I need pseudoterminals and I need them by
> Friday." My answer was generally quick and to the point: "No." The
> reason for my frequent "no" was that everyone was trying to turn
> MINIX into a production-quality UNIX system and I didn't want it
> to get so complicated that it would become useless for my purpose,
> namely, teaching it to students.

  Remember that he was a full-time university professor, with a wife and
child, who wrote Minix in the evenings after putting his kid to bed.  He
did not have enough time to support a commercial OS.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes-SLHPyeZ9y/tg9hUCZPvPmw at public.gmane.org>
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