Status of LINUX?
Drew Eckhardt
>Hello *,
> I know some people are working on a FREE O/S for the 386/486,
>under the name Linux. I checked nic.funet.fi now and then, to see what was
>happening. However, for the time being I am without FTP access so I don't
>know what is going on at the moment. Could someone please inform me about it?
>It's maybe best to follow up to this article, as I think that there are
>a lot of potential interested people reading this group. Note, that I don't
>really *have* a >= 386, but I'm sure in time I will.
>
Linux is a free Unix clone. It's nearly 100% Sys V and POSIX compatable.
Gcc, gas, the GNU binutils family, bison, bash, micro emacs, kermit, RCS,
many goodies exist. Since it is nearly 100% Sys 5 compatable, porting is...
like typing make.
We have a full standard 'C' library, ANSI compliant header files,
and the string and memory library functions will be expanded as
inline assembler if you've included the header files.
The kernel source is very compact, geared entirely to the 386 <and above>
designs, and makes no attempt to be portable. This makes it fast
and tight when compared to the bloated BSD, or Minix kernel hacked to
take advantage of the 386.
Hardware requirements :
Minimally, 2 megs, a 386sx or above, and a high density floppy.
Note that the MINIMAL root file partition, as distributed,
on a 1.2 meg disk has ~25K
left on it, and gcc dies in less than 4 megs of RAM.
Realistically, 4 megs or more of RAM, and a > 20 meg hard disk
partition dedicated to Linux.
Depending on who you talk to, and their definitions of development /
alpha / beta testing, it's either still under development or under alpha or
beta test.
The truth of the matter is that what is there is quite stable and workable,
but some features <some would say either desirable or essential> are
still lacking or in the various stages of development. These would include
- Swapping. Virtual memory / paging is implemented, in shared copy on write
memory, as well as demand paging, but swapping is not.
Supposedly, coming some time over Christmas break.
- Job control Multiple processes can be run - however there is no way to
toggle between them - ie via cntrl-Z and bg/fg. This is currently
in alpha test, and will be there soon.
- Refinement in the serial drivers - these are currently hardwired to 2400
bps, and lack IOCTL support.
- Pttys - under devlopment
- SCSI support - under development.