In article <1992Jan13.141829.2257@maths.tcd.ie> you write:
quoted text
>Is any independent person actually running Linux,
>and can give an opinion on its merits
>vis-a-vis 386-Minix?

I've used both, Minix386 about 6months ago, Linux for the last month.
Linux is a lot faster I feel, and ports better according to people on 
the mailing list.  It is compiled with gcc, and feels pretty stable
and solid.  I would suggest you give it a go for a couple of days
and see how you like it.

quoted text
>While I could be convinced on this,
>it seems to me pretty unlikely on the face of it
>that anyone could really write a reliable operating system
>from scratch in a short time.
>After all, it took Tanenbaum years to write Minix,
>and he worked night and day without stop,
>and had a team working under him too.
>One only has to look at the sources
>to see the sheer intellectual work involved
>in such an enterprise.

Then Linus is a f**king code poet.  I don't know how long he's been
working on it, but if it's been "months" I'd be *super* impressed!
Right now I'm just real impressed..  :-)  
Seriously though there have been quite a few contributions from other
net.code.poets to Linux so it's not like it was a total one man effort,
though Linus seems to have done most the core operating system stuff.
I'd suggest you send a note to "linux-activists-request@joker.cs.hut.fi"
and ask to be put on the mailing list if you're real interested or that
you just download linux itself and play with it or read some of the release
notes and/or code if you're just mildly intrigued.  I don't have a lot
of time to dedicate to development (ok, none really) but I *really* like
the idea of a free, evolving (rapidly) UNIX clone that isn't "owned" by
a big company like Prentice-Hall and has all the hassles (and costs) that
come along with commercialization.  It's Linus' system but because it's
free (except for your net connections) I think it has the potential to
become a popular, well supported (ports) system..

(ok, I got carried away..basic thought: I like it!)


quoted text
>Timothy Murphy  
>e-mail: tim@maths.tcd.ie
>tel: +353-1-2842366
>s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland



-Andrew
-- 
=====================================================================
Andrew Gillham ****** Andrews University ****** (gillham@andrews.edu)
I would've added a cool .signature, but I already mailed this letter.