I heard something about that. Also I heard that the segmented memory was EVIL, or something. Although apparently unixes running on the platform used it to simulate the user/kernel divide.
And honestly, we all know that x86 is an awkward architecture at best, hampered by the need for obsessive backwards compatibility, and that without the huge binary footprint, ARM and RISC would have won.
Remember when Andrew Tanenbaum said that his issues with Linux's design were a moot point, because we'd all be running HURD on RISC machines by the year 2000? Have you noticed people in the Linux crowd saying that Wayland will kill X? You'd thing we'd have learned our lesson by now: Backwards compatibility trumps all.
And honestly, we all know that x86 is an awkward architecture at best, hampered by the need for obsessive backwards compatibility, and that without the huge binary footprint, ARM and RISC would have won.
Remember when Andrew Tanenbaum said that his issues with Linux's design were a moot point, because we'd all be running HURD on RISC machines by the year 2000? Have you noticed people in the Linux crowd saying that Wayland will kill X? You'd thing we'd have learned our lesson by now: Backwards compatibility trumps all.