Tag kernel

Benchmarks

When OS X first made its appearance in 2001 and for many years afterwards, the performance of xnu, its kernel, and many of its subsystems was ridiculed as it was way slower than its competitors. Elitism, slower development cycle, closed source etc. aside, Apple has managed to make Mac OS X much faster than the leading linux distributions in the span of a couple of years, while at the same time the desktop linux projects and companies struggle with reinventing the wheel and fixing regressions. The situation on the desktop today for linux users is --- comparatively --- worse than it was a decade: traditional strongholds are gone [e.g. performance] while usability, stability and features are more or less unchanged for many years. Sad for Open Source, sad for competition.

One Big Problem.

If there is any one big problem with kernel development and Linux it is the complete disconnection of the development process from normal users. You know, the ones who constitute 99.9% of the Linux user base.

Con Kolivas, 2007

An interesting interview and some views on the priorities of the linux development community and the history of the personal computer that I generally agree with. Con's quoted statement sadly rings true for Open Source development in general. After years of development, the Linux Desktop, the applications, the libraries, the documentation seem incomplete, archaic, chaotic and riddled with critical, esoteric issues that the 'fix it yourself' mentality of the stereotypical linux hacker is not going to remedy; that --- if anything --- is what keeps the wonderful idea of FLOSS from attaining the position it deserves.