this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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It can be, sure. I prefer garbage collectors but I'm not doing systems programming.
I feel like a garbage collector would be too much a performance hit for kernel stuff.
2 things:
It's more the determinacy, a GC randomly fires up and your systems stops for some long amount of time. There are pauseless GCs but that's a different nightmare.
The kernel has things similar to GCs. They're used for more specialized tasks, and some (like rcu) are absolute nightmares that have take decades to get working.