Comment by p_ing
2 days ago
Makes no sense to dump a superior kernel and executive for Linux.
The Win32 layer is the issue, not the underbelly.
2 days ago
Makes no sense to dump a superior kernel and executive for Linux.
The Win32 layer is the issue, not the underbelly.
I’ve had more hard crashes and BSODs on Windows than any other OS. And I use Linux & Mac more than Windows. Not sure how it’s superior.
The windows NT kernel is in many ways a better design. However they allow third party device drivers, and run on all kinds of really terrible hardware. Both of them will cause the system to be unstable through no fault of the system.
Don't get me wrong, NT also has its share of questionable design decisions. However overall the technical design of the kernel is great.
More advanced APIs which allow more fine-grained interaction between system and application IF you can figure out how to use them
My favorite example of this is how Windows NT has had async IO forever, while also being notorious for having slower storage performance than Linux. And when Linux finally got an async API worth using, Microsoft immediately set about cloning it for Windows.
Theoretical or aesthetic advantages are no guarantee that the software in question will actually be superior in practice.
2 replies →
They might use the NT kernel and their own version of the Linux userland.
I'd be open to the idea, if the kernel were open sourced (MIT licensed?) so I could play with it too.
Why do that when Win32 is what everyone wants?
We’ve already had NT + Linux userland; that was WSLv1.
I think if we're talking about "what everyone wants", Windows 11 obviously isn't it, so that's not necessarily the driving force here.
3 replies →
> Makes no sense to dump a superior kernel and executive for Linux.
At this point in time, having programmed deep in the internals of both Linux and Windows, I think it is probably incorrect to call either kernel an inferior or superior one.
I mean, it was true for both of them at some point (Overlapped IO was great on Windows and missing on Linux, for example) but today, in 2026, the only differentiating factor is the userland experience.
For me, Windows loses this hands down.