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posted by martyb on Wednesday September 18 2019, @02:51PM   Printer-friendly
from the you're-crazy dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

With Microsoft embracing Linux ever more tightly, might it do the heretofore unthinkable and dump the NT kernel in favor of the Linux kernel? No, I’m not ready for the funny farm. As it prepares Windows 11, Microsoft has been laying the groundwork for such a radical release.

I’ve long toyed with the idea that Microsoft could release a desktop Linux. Now I’ve started taking that idea more seriously — with a twist. Microsoft could replace Windows’ innards, the NT kernel, with a Linux kernel.

It would still look like Windows. For most users, it would still work like Windows. But the engine running it all would be Linux.

Why would Microsoft do this? Well, have you been paying attention to Windows lately? It has been one foul-up after another. Just in the last few months there was the registry backup fail and numerous and regular machine-hobbling Windows updates. In fact, updates have grown so sloppy you have to seriously wonder whether it’s safer to stay open to attacks or “upgrade” your system with a dodgy patch.

Remember when letting your Windows system get automatic patches every month was nothing to worry about? I do. Good times.

Why is this happening? The root cause of all these problems is that, for Microsoft, Windows desktop software is now a back-burner product. It wants your company to move you to Windows Virtual Desktop and replace your existing PC-based software, like Office 2019, with software-as-a-service (SaaS) programs like Office 365. It’s obvious, right? Nobody in Redmond cares anymore, so quality assurance for Windows the desktop is being flushed down the toilet.

Many of the problems afflicting Windows do not reside in the operating system’s upper levels. Instead, their roots are deep down in the NT kernel. What, then, if we could replace that rotten kernel with a fresh, healthy kernel? Maybe one that is being kept up to date by a worldwide group of passionate developers. Yes, my bias is showing, but that’s Linux, and it’s a solution that makes a lot of sense.


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  • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday September 18 2019, @04:48PM (1 child)

    by Freeman (732) on Wednesday September 18 2019, @04:48PM (#895721) Journal

    Define Windows?

    Here's significant Milestones for MS-DOS/Windows:
    MS-DOS - Initial release August 12, 1981; 38 years ago[3]
    Windows - November 20, 1985; 33 years ago, as version 1.0 (unsupported)
    Windows 95, was released on August 24, 1995.
    Windows NT 3.1 (named to associate it with Windows 3.1) was released in July 1993

    I would say that when comparing apples to oranges, the release of the NT Kernel was akin to the first release of the Linux Kernel. As the NT Kernel was a major change from the previous architectures. While the current Windows 10 makes use of the NT Kernel. Which would make the Linux Kernel a couple years older than the NT Kernel/Windows.

    Linux Kernel - Initial release 0.01 (17 September 1991; 27 years ago)

    --
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by dry on Thursday September 19 2019, @05:00AM

    by dry (223) on Thursday September 19 2019, @05:00AM (#895988) Journal

    NT started out as OS/2 NT ver 3. As part of the divorce, MS got version 3+ and IBM got ver 2.x. I'm sure they were happy that when they screwed IBM and switched NT to Windows, 3.1 was only slightly behind desktop Windows 3.11, which most called 3.1