He doesn’t know everything, he explains his understanding of things, and he’s frequently overgeneralized or just plain wrong.

But this post starts off on a rant, and then uses the example of a file system driver? Are you kidding? Blows up about the use of a “command line” because it’s “godlike”? So the ignorance of this poster attacking what he perceives as the ignorance of another poster now contributes to the overal general flurry of crap around MinWin.

I’ve heard that in linux systems, “compiling” the kernel produces a monolithic kernel, so you literally have to recompile it to get changes in feature sets.

With NT, the kernel is the very core-most part of the system, and then kernel *mode* components (that live in kernel *space*) can be added and removed, chopped and changed, just by adding or removing entries in the registry. File system drivers are included – the same kernel bits can boot from FAT or NTFS (or whatever file system driver you have installed), without a recompile.

Using “the command line” is necessary because the GUI doesn’t expose every component, probably to avoid users blowing their legs off.

I’ve already admitted in my last comment that perhaps the author of Shipping Seven is actually involved in the Windows 7 program, just not as a developer. Given the genuine concerns about the authenticity/quality of the facts in that post and the (plenty) of room for multiple (mis-)interpretations (on purpose?) I’m not convinced Shipping Seven is on the up-and-up; but I guess anything is possible.

I guess only time will tell who’s telling the truth and who’s not; hopefully either way Windows 7 will be a good improvement.

But it seems that our friend here likes arguing semantics more than making sense. Face it buddy, you went way over the line with a clueless rant, and people are calling you out on it. Hey, it’s no problem, happens to everyone. Funnily enough you even seem somewhat sincere in your debunking mission, instead of merely trolling for page hits, and I don’t know what’s worse.

You bring up this issue of “compile time” configuration. Well, if you understood the Windows architecture, you’d know that compile-time dependencies are not the problem. Even in the userland most of Windows is built on COM, with components at different dependency layers living in different binaries.

At the kernel level, this is no such thing as compiling the kernel “without a feature” – the kernel itself has no features. You can’t built it with or without filesystem support because is HAS no filesystem support at the microkernel level. There’s a separate binary for that. Same with virtually every component you could want to remove.

Also, the OS X kernel has never been rewritten. Since the first version, OS X 10.0, Apple has not rewritten the kernel. It’s pretty clear that this is what Seven was referring to.

Perhaps in the future you should do some research before displaying your ignorance for the world to see?

Think of Richard Feynman: he could talk about quantum physics and make you understand a lot about it without even entering the in-deep technicisms that would render the talk incomprehensible to the “outsiders”.

The shipping seven author does just the same, he won’t tell you “by using powershell you can enter this file, remove the reference to this module so that it won’t be loaded anymore, etc. etc.”, he just vaguely waves at “stripping down the system by command line”.

This is after all the difference between a monolithic and modular kernel: as you correctly stated, you can’t remove – say – Lsupport for ReiserFS from the Linux kernel without removing it from the source and recompiling. Why? Cause it’s a monolithic kernel. Everything that has to do with it, is inside. A modular kernel allows for stuff that’s *outside* and that you can load/unload at your will. Just imagine ReiserFS support being something like… a lower level daemon, service.

Nice article anyway, shows an excellent attitude to manipulation of the simpler minds… Jobs Style!

Think of Richard Feynman: he could talk about quantum physics and make you understand a lot about it without even entering the in-deep technicisms that would render the talk incomprehensible to the “outsiders”.

The shipping seven author does just the same, he won’t tell you “by using powershell you can enter this file, remove the reference to this module so that it won’t be loaded anymore, etc. etc.”, he just vaguely waves at “stripping down the system by command line”.

This is after all the difference between a monolithic and modular kernel: as you correctly stated, you can’t remove – say – Lsupport for ReiserFS from the Linux kernel without removing it from the source and recompiling. Why? Cause it’s a monolithic kernel. Everything that has to do with it, is inside. A modular kernel allows for stuff that’s *outside* and that you can load/unload at your will. Just imagine ReiserFS support being something like… a lower level daemon, service.

Nice article anyway, shows an excellent attitude to manipulation of the simpler minds… Jobs Style!

I should probably note here that the operating system user interface in Windows Vista is simply Explorer. All things such as the scroll bars, buttons, etc. exist for the purpose of allowing a user interface to be created. Explorer does not have to run and can easily be removed from the system. The best example here would be Windows Server 2008’s Server Core SKUs. A graphical user interface is not required by any means.