On Jun 14, 2012, at 5:06 PM, Bruce Dubbs <bruce.du...@gmail.com> wrote:
> youlys...@riseup.net wrote: >> Hey all! >> >> I'm new to LFS, and I started skimming though the book, and I found this. >> >> >>> Linux Kernel >>> >>> This package is the Operating System. It is the Linux in the GNU/Linux >>> environment. >>> >>> - >> http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/development/prologue/package-choices.html >> >> To my understanding, a Operating System is a series of packages, (more >> than one) that is used in unison to make a "feature-full" system. Isn't >> Linux just the part of the system that allocates memory to applications, >> and some other low-level tasks? >> >> What's the rational behind this? > > You have to understand what the definition of an operating system is. > Some people confuse the OS and the system. The OS is the kernel that > controls what programs are run, memory allocation, hardware input and > output, etc. The kernel alone would not be very useful without > supporting systems like bash. > > You can run the Linux kernel with just bash for IO, but even that > wouldn't be very useful without utility programs like coreutils, major > libraries like glibc, etc. > > Take a look at the Wikipedia entry for Operating System. Well from that article you can see that they don't mean just the kernel. For example they correctly list Mac OS X as an operating system which is much more than just their mach kernel. A kernel is just one part of the OS. You also need software in user space that acts as a human interface in order to achieve anything, even if this is just a simple shell. I suggest we change the wording in that section to at least call Linux the core of the operating system. JH -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/lfs-dev FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/faq/ Unsubscribe: See the above information page
