I recently ran across the following quote from Gartner Group:

“A downside faced by the Linux kernel maintainers, as expressed by Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun, is the increasing size and complexity of the underlying C code, which poses challenges to the reliability and stability of the kernel (a problem all Unix vendors face, though with a greater track record).”

The collective source notwithstanding, does anyone have any idea about how many lines of C code are supporting the 2.4 kernel?

Secondly, how does that number compare to the lines of code required to support W2k or XP?

An end compiled bzImage kernel... the binaries, is only the ballpark of a meg. The source code is what they're talking about... which has gotten quite ridiculous, 170Mb for 2.4.17 as compared to 20Mb or so for 2.0.1 only four years ago (You do the math on how many lines that is). The thing the article doesn't take into account is that not all, heck not 1/10 of that gets used in most RedHat/Mandrake/Slackware boxed shipping kernels. Not only that, but if you slim it down and compile your own, its down to 1/100.

You have to remember that in comparison to say... DOS, support for everything, every piece of PC/Mac/Sparc/Mips hardware on the planet ends up in the kernel. Rarely, and actually I can't think of a single occurence, does the vendor of a device produce the linux driver for it, that's what the geeks do.

How does the code compare to windows? Which one? (95,98,Me) is one product compared to (NT, 2k, XP)... and really, I have no idea. In order to get the source code I'd have to sign my non-disclosured soul over to Uncle Bill.

Cheers,

Finegan

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...e+code+windows

so that's about 40 lines?

You know, I heard from a friend that Windows 98 is made up of around 3 million lines of code.

Thanks for the responses. I thought I remembered reading somewhere that W98 was more like 30M. So, unless your friend is Bill Gates, I guess we still don't really have a clue....

WinXP has approx. 45 millions of code: http://www.paulandrews.com/2002/01/18

Win2k is approx. 35 millions of code: Http://www.windowsadvantage.Com/tren...-99_riches.Asp (Notice the ".asp" extension)

NT 4.0, didn't find the info in the time I have to look for it!

NT 3.5.1 had approx. an 8 millions line codebase:
http://www.wec.ufl.edu/staff/hydew/comp/

I say the Linux community adapt a UI like the Mac's OS X did, it sit's on top of UNIX, write a ton drivers for it, and give the vast majority of Users, who's job isn't programming or being a super system admin, another viable, free choice!

This Microsoft skullduggery's gettin' kinda old!

If I recall correctly there are about 30 million lines of code in 2.4.x.

--jeremy

While I thoroughly enjoyed reading acid_kewpie's very thoughtful response, these last two posts are the kind of information I was really looking for. Thanks to all for responding.

So, WinXP has 45M lines of Code, the 2.4.x kernel has 30M lines of code and "A downside faced by the Linux kernel maintainers, as expressed by Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun, is the increasing size and complexity of the underlying C code"? I would say that since WinXP 'may require addition hardware' and Linux could quite possibly 'require less hardware than you currently have', I'll be sticking with Linux, thankyou.

"Stick w/Linux?" Agreed!

And keep in mind what our friend "finnegan" says.. there are options to not install items, and to do a little compiling ourselves. Not options with MS OS's.

Amoungst other things, bulky MS OSs affects performance immensely. Forget all those gaudy performance numbers marketing departments put out. Look at single system results. Those are closer to the truth.

As for the comment that code for every piece of hardware on the planet is added to the kernal. Code does get added, but in a layered fashion. Thereby adding millions of lines more, to the OS. The core of the kernal itself is epoxied. Figuratively speaking!!

That's why when MS recruits Dell to unseat a major Oracle install on OVMS and Alpha systems saying they can beat performance and reliability with SQL, they don't! Performance numbers are approx. 6 times slower!

Oh well .. enough soap-box for today.

Take care all,
Carlos

What I want to know is why MS makes products that are so bulky and huge, yet they offer less performance than Linux?

Or maybe what I should really ask is how the Linux kernel can be so small, yet run more faster and stable, with much less security holes than Windows?

I guess it could be because the hackers that make Linux are more dedicated and just plain smarter than MS employees.

I don't think intelligence has anything to do with it. I think the word would be brainwashing. The MS employees are brainwashed into writing bad code.

Now that's a little far... that's like blaming a factory line worker for the fact the Pinto explodes in a fender bender. I've known a couple guys who went and interviewed with The Beast, and even one that actually works for them. Its just like any other major company: Employee A gets assigned Project 1 by moron Boss B, who then doesn't realize that the submitted Project 1 is a kludgey hack job because Employee A wuld rather be, and was actually hacking on kernel 2.4.17 on company time.

Employee A has to satisy somewhere between one and maybe twenty to thirty guys from testing to architecture to supervisory. A kernel hacker has to satisfy every geek on the planet that bug snoots his/her code; theoretically at least.

How did I wander off there again?

Cheers,

Finegan

Actually MS programmers have no choice but to add lines of code to a core that is, figuratively speaking, sealed shut.

It's not that they're less intelligent or less dedicated than anyone else.

They're given tasks and tools to complete those tasks that don't allow for innovation. They are part of the machine.

Resistance is futile, innovation irrelevant.

They are the Borg aren't they?

shadowhacker:
You should realize that Windows is not designed for smart people.
Each yearh, dumb and dumber people start using Windows.
Simple people can easily get intrigued by Linux, but quite not
with Windows (well, it's smart people who get pissed off by
windows, is a different thing). In addition to that, MS have
lot more hardware to support.
GEnerally, M$ doesn't start an OS development from scratch. They
just add build one OS on top of another. Most of underlying code,
even in Win98 is still 16 bit, a reminiscent of Windows version 1.0
from 1980s. This adds millions of lines of code. Win 98 code is
full of patches, so it's impossible for figure out exactly what a
code snippet does. The new developers add a few if then else
and make it work (just in time for release), and add few more
lines to put some more patches (service packs ).
As for stability of their code, I heard recently that MIcro$oft
themselves do not use Visual Source Safe for version control.
They still rely on Unix machines.