If you're just going to sit there doing nothing, at least do nothing correctly

Re:If you're just going to sit there doing nothing, at least... by heyoni on Saturday February 17, 2024 @04:18AM (#39407820)

This is great and all until you completely ignored the fact that wine exists and went on to call user space design questions by Microsoft “trivial”. I could also start listing ways that the Linux kernel maintains backwards compatibility with not just software but hardware that’s decades old but the list would get too long. No one is complaining that Microsoft has too much backward compatibility, it’s their utter disregard for user choices and privacy that drives away the hacker community to either Linux or even macOS.

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Re:If you're just going to sit there doing nothing, at least... by pjmlp on Saturday February 17, 2024 @04:47AM (#39407962)

Linux kernel on its own doesn't run software.

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Re:If you're just going to sit there doing nothing, at least... by heyoni on Saturday February 17, 2024 @04:54AM (#39408009)

But it comes with drivers supporting very old hardware, hence the inclusion.

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Re:If you're just going to sit there doing nothing, at least... by pjmlp on Saturday February 17, 2024 @05:41AM (#39408274)

That alone still doesn't run applications.

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Re:If you're just going to sit there doing nothing, at least... by heyoni on Saturday February 17, 2024 @06:05AM (#39408390)

GNU/Linux + the linux kernel.

Somehow, it feels like you don't actually care about the point I was making as much as putting me down. I misspoke...barely, yet you're so fixated on pointing it out in the most unhelpful manner. You keep replying so why not try using more than one sentence next time?

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Re:If you're just going to sit there doing nothing, at least... by pjmlp on Saturday February 17, 2024 @07:23AM (#39408809)

Now that you got there, which distribution released in 2023 allows me to run a GNU/Linux binary compiled in 2000, regardless of the distribution it was compiled on back in 2000?

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Re:If you're just going to sit there doing nothing, at least... by heyoni on Saturday February 17, 2024 @07:44AM (#39408932)

What am I chatgpt? Just make your point and tell us which 2000 binaries don't run and we can argue about whether or not that counts as a mark against backwards compatibility.

Also, is this a trick question about binaries that weren't patched for y2k or something?

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Re:If you're just going to sit there doing nothing, at least... by hnfong on Saturday February 17, 2024 @11:06AM (#39410667)

If a binary from 2000 doesn't run, it's because of glibc ABI changes. I still have faint memories of glibc crap happening in the early 2000s. But if the binary from 2000 is statically linked, then the Linux kernel probably runs it fine today.

Which is weird considering the argument you had with others above about how "Linux (kernel) doesn't run software", was it a buildup to convince us that "GNU(glibc)/Linux" is really bad at running old binaries? Because your argument doesn't hold for the Linux kernel itself running statically linked binaries.

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Re:If you're just going to sit there doing nothing, at least... by pjmlp on Saturday February 17, 2024 @04:09PM (#39413582)

Only if those binaries were designed to be called from the Linux kernel directly, using only syscalls.

Last time I checked, hardly anyone uses their computer as an embedded board.

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Re:If you're just going to sit there doing nothing, at least... by tremon on Saturday February 17, 2024 @09:39AM (#39409790)

application /= software. You're moving the (extremely ill-defined) goalposts. Next you'll be arguing that device drivers or the Linux VFS layer aren't "software".

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Re:If you're just going to sit there doing nothing, at least... by pjmlp on Saturday February 17, 2024 @10:04AM (#39410047)

The goal hasn't moved, we are talking about ABI compatibility for a full operating system across multiple decades and generations of operating systems releases, without requiring building those applications from source.

Not a kernel booting directly into an application doing straight syscalls.

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Re:If you're just going to sit there doing nothing, at least... by RetroTechie on Saturday February 17, 2024 @08:33AM (#39409252)

> Linux kernel on its own doesn't run software.

Linux runs /sbin/init.

Which you can make any executable you want.

Not to mention initial RAMdisk (loaded by a bootloader like grub) which can be of arbitrary size & loaded up with an arbitrary ton of goodness.

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Re:If you're just going to sit there doing nothing, at least... by pjmlp on Saturday February 17, 2024 @10:20AM (#39410218)

Yeah, which is quite far from a full OS experience providing ABI compatibility across several generations of operating systems.

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Re:If you're just going to sit there doing nothing, at least... by RetroTechie on Saturday February 17, 2024 @11:25AM (#39410856)

Linux (kernel) has a userland ABI of its own. Which is pretty stable & rarely broken (Linus will probably breath fire @ any kernel developer who does break user space). So eg. 10y old statically compiled binaries will likely run fine on recent kernels.

But as you state: it's the OS-level ABI's (C library, desktop environments, middleware libraries, etc) that keep changing constantly. And thus, keep breaking pre-compiled binaries.

Source-level API vs. binary ABI stability. Kind of a philosophical debate imho. But sadly, even that source-level API isn't too stable in some circles.

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Re:If you're just going to sit there doing nothing, at least... by calamari4065 on Saturday February 17, 2024 @09:24AM (#39409659)

Do you have an actual argument or are you really committing to "nuh-uh"

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