Technological advantages over Linux

[Lowell Gilbert]

Steve O'Hara-Smith <steve at sohara.org> writes:

> On Sat, 15 Feb 2020 23:58:22 +0100
> Polytropon <freebsd at edvax.de> wrote:
>
>> And all of them connect to the Internet, using a device that
>> internally uses a BSD or a Linux, and the bowels of the Internet
>> consist primarily of BSD and Linux. Add "Linux-like things" to
>> the mix, like Android smartphones, or "BSD-like things" like
>> Macs, and numbers might look a little different.
>
> 	The late Morten Reistad used to post (in alt.folklore.computers)
> about the numbers of processors with memory management being made and
> comparing that with Windows licenses, Apple and Android phone production
> numbers. Windows, MacOs and commercial unix licenses only account for a
> small fraction of the CPUs made - most of them have to be running something
> else Linux (Android, routers, TVs, cars ...), BSD (routers and who knows
> what else) and Mach (iThingies) being the obvious available kernels.

Back then, having memory management implied having virtual memory. These
days, some fairly low-end CPUs have MMUs. Furthermore, memory management
is very useful for implementing process privileges, even on an OS that
does not use virtual memory; again, something that wasn't relevant back
in the day.