Comments by "Anony Mousse" (@anon_y_mousse) on "Linux Putting An End To This 30 Year Old CPU!!" video.

That's not how it works. The source code may be huge, but you select the options to include support for your hardware and build a binary. That binary is what gets used by your system and is generally pretty small. I've a lot of options set in my kernel and the huge kernel build is still only 11mb, the generic is only 6.8, and the custom is only 4. You can go tighter than that if you want.
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Wait, are they saying that 486's didn't have rdtsc? Because I remember using that instruction even back in the 90's when I wrote an uptime program for my Win98 box. As for the floating point emulation, I hope they keep that around even if it's not used because it's just incredibly cool. It would be a great benefit to any new developer that reads the source to understand how floating point numbers are decomposed in a real world scenario as opposed to some hypothetical discussion.
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Slight typo, but it's clear, not clean.
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@andljoy I hear you. I'm older than a lot of "retro" hardware some of these YouTubers show off.
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It's not thanks to C but rather poorly written code. If you know what you're doing and are always careful when writing your code you can avoid poor memory management and have no errors. But not everyone is a good programmer and not every good programmer is always that careful. Remember that thousands contribute to the kernel and all of that code can't always be stringently checked for correctness. C makes it so that you can shoot yourself in the foot, but it doesn't require it. Rust attempts to take the ability to shoot downward away from you as though shooting toward the ground can only ever result in you shooting your foot when there are other legitimate reasons to shoot in that direction. Languages that do as Rust does aren't good languages just because they make it harder in one area for you to mess up since they also make certain useful code harder to write. Locking complex behavior behind a wall using an "unsafe" keyword is just bad design.
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That's a good point. I've just started watching his videos, he's got some interesting things to say.
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@robertmarder126 Thanks, I couldn't seem to find an answer as to when that instruction was added. Always been one of my favorites too since the OS can actually lock it down and while Windows didn't, a few Linux distros actually did back then.
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@DistrosProjects True, but it's a lot easier to do when the source for the kernel you're currently using includes it. For instance, the distro I use includes the source and thus I can look at it any time I want even without an internet connection.
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All of you people talking about being the same or younger age than the 486 make me feel so old. I feel like I should go pluck some gray hairs, but I'm told two grow back in their place and I'm not totally gray yet, so I'll heed the old wives' tale.
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As someone who ran Linux on real hardware before WinXP existed, I can safely say you are full of bovine excrement. It booted faster and ran faster than Win98 and XP and could install in less space.
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@elmariachi5133 So you were incapable of building your own kernel from source. Doesn't make Linux bad because you can't use it effectively. Your lack of experience makes you the limited one.
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@elmariachi5133 First, that's a lie. Second, it most certainly is because you can make it run better if you configure it correctly. Third, you're the fanatic who attacks it as though you know WTF you're talking about. But hey, thanks for calling me kid, I like being thought of as young by someone who's likely young enough to be one of my children.
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Sure, but how much floating point math does the kernel actually do? And it's not like you couldn't replace most usage of floats in most programs with fixed point math, not all, but most.
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Yes, we need to go micro.
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Can you imagine actually running Linux on Ben Eater's kit computer. That would be awesome.
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