[Klug-general] Distro Wars

[Wayne Brown]

Peter wrote:

>
> It seems to be a major weakness of Linux that it's so dependent on 
> chip architecture.

Hi Peter,

It would be easy to compile linux packages to work for all x86 
processors and remove any choice -
all that happens is the code produced is backwards compatible at the 
cost of more bloaty code and also a little slower. This is in fact what 
you get with closed source proprietory software like MS Windows and the 
various software packages you buy.
On the other hand packages compiled for 686 mean you get a performance 
gain at the cost of breaking backwards compatability - not a problem at 
all really when you can download the version you want.
So you see It's not a weakness it's an advantage of Linux and open 
source software in general!

-- 
Regards

Wayne
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