Should Linux Go On Weight Watchers?
It is usually Microsoft and its Windows software that holds the title as bloatware. But now the founding father of Linux is admitting that the operating system he founded has become “bloated and huge.” Linus Torvalds also thinks that there is no diet plan in sight to trim down the Linux OS. So what does this all mean? Not much really.
Though the operating system may have slowed down some, stability is still not a problem. A recent article also stated:
Asked what the community is doing to solve this, he balked. “Uh, I’d love to say we have a plan,” Torvalds replied to applause and chuckles from the audience. “I mean, sometimes it’s a bit sad that we are definitely not the streamlined, small, hyper-efficient kernel that I envisioned 15 years ago…The kernel is huge and bloated, and our icache footprint is scary. I mean, there is no question about that. And whenever we add a new feature, it only gets worse.”
He maintains, however, that stability is not a problem. “I think we’ve been pretty stable,” he said. “We are finding the bugs as fast as we’re adding them — even though we’re adding more code.”
Bottomley took this to mean that Torvalds views that the current level of integration is acceptable under those terms. But Mr. Linux corrected him. “No. I’m not saying that,” Torvalds answered. “Acceptable and avoidable are two different things. It’s unacceptable but it’s also probably unavoidable.”
Among techies, Windows usually gets the bad reputation for bloat, but as Linux expands its reach, roping in so many additional features and devices, it can’t help but suffer the same fate. What’s different is how such problems are tackled.
I don’t think that Linux has anything to worry about. Do you?
Comments welcome.
4 Comments
Polopolo
September 23rd, 2009
at 12:10pm
I think I need to agree, but Linux is better then Windows if we talk about this subject.
It’s true that we get more problems when more lines and idea’s get’s added, and that it will slow down PC’s sometimes. But comparing it with Windows, I think Linux has by far nothing to fear.
mhz
September 23rd, 2009
at 2:39pm
Ok, so you’ve got the beginning of bloat. Now you keep adding all of the ideas and features that people request, with design and testing originating from all the disparate open source contributors.
You put in enough features that you can convince *regular* people to like it, then Voila!, you have Linux 95.
You make it usable for corporations, along with good plug and play, and Voila!, you’ll have Linux XP.
By now you realize that in order to service all those requests, you’ve sacrificed some security, so you go back and revamp that, but no one likes it. Voila!, you have Linux Vista.
I think I’ll wait for Linux 7.
Ron Schenone
September 23rd, 2009
at 6:16pm
mhz – thanks for the chuckle
Dean
September 23rd, 2009
at 8:53pm
The running kernel shouldn’t really be that big though, for the reason that in a distro shipped, everything is a loadable module, and things that get loaded are typically things that you would use.
The problem that is imaginable is that the kernel includes lots and lots of drivers for many different things in addition to …well doing what a kernel does, and it must be difficult to manage all that code.
All things considered, if you make a list of all the things that is supported in the vanilla kernel and then look at the equal size of windows XP providing the same functionality, then start to add all the drivers to XP that are supported by Linux, the joke only really becomes about how user friendly Linux is when it comes to Linux 95, Linux XP and Linux Vista. If 20 years pass and I install Linux, and it takes less room to run the kernel than Vista then I won’t be at all supprised.
The question of managing all that code still stands though.. as it would for any OS.
Outside of kernel development, things sort of had to bloat. You can run on very little ram using tools that give you graphics with a low overhead, but as soon as you need firefox you’lle be screwed… proabably have a memory leak from it too.