alt Hacker NewsI remember how NetBSD promoted itself as running on many more toasters than Linux once.
Then some NetBSD dev wrote on their mailing list that this is no longer true. Linux runs on more toasters now. (And also top 500 supercomputers, but toasters are the real metal to the petal test.)
These fights always remind me of:
https://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html
It's an interesting piece of history too. I kind of evaluate it a bit differently, e. g. my summary is "momentum beats academic perfection". Which is not completely what it is about, but it is my own imperfect TL;DR summary.
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This basically fits my stereotype of BSD being a little bit more hardcore while Linux is a little more accessible… when the question was “can you install an OS on a toaster,” BSD had an advantage. Now that normal engineers have to make IOT toasters (for some reason) Linux should have the advantage, right?
why did that url point me to a scrotum in an egg cup
> but toasters are the real metal to the petal test.
Or is that a new tongue in cheek idiom?
AFAIK, it’s peDal, not peTal, and the other way around: pedal to the metal. The literal meaning is to push your accelerator pedal down to the floor of your car, which is made of metal.