Re: Ask a question

fatpig wrote:
The general consensus was that Minix3 was too little, too late. It
does a great job of fulfilling it first purpose: education. It fails
on general use. When asked if Minix3 had the support and popularity
that Linux or BSD had, would you switch over? Again, a few answers
were the same. Linux and BSD already do a good job at filling an
general purpose/server operating system niche. There is very little
reason to switch over.

I think it's a bit harsh/premature to be writing off MINIX 3 for
anything outside of education just yet. As I mentioned in another
thread I view lack of USB support as a major shortcoming but there is
a "team" working on that. Quite possibly when some critical mass
point is reached, i.e. when enough modern features have been
implemented to make it appealing to those outside of the hard core
MINIX fans, interest will increase and development will rapidly
accelerate. This would have to be a fork from the educational branch
though.

As for whether I would use MINIX exclusively if it had a few more
features to make it general purpose, my answer is a definite yes,
Linux & BSD's not withstanding. The reason is partly philosophical
i.e. why should any market area or endevour be dominated by a few
brands/systems and partly practical. Linux's relative safety is due
at least in part to it's small share of the consumer market. Virus
writers want to target as many amchines as possible so their viruses
are written for Windows. If Linux for example ends up with 50%
general usage this situation will change for the worse. It will be a
long time before it's worthwhile to write viruses for MINIX.

obscurity != security
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Ask a question
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  • Re: Ask a question
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