Linus Torvalds calls Apple's file system "utter crap"

Linus Torvalds may have dabbled in Apple territory in the past, but he's definitely not mincing any words about competing operating systems now. In a recent interview, Linus says that OS X is a "much better system" than Windows Vista overall, but that "in some ways is actually worse than Windows to program for." Apparently these problems are rooted firmly in OS X's file system (HFS and HFS+), which he describes as "complete and utter crap," and even "scary." Of course, Torvalds also took the opportunity to tout the many virtues of Linux, which he says is an "obvious choice for anything from full-blown PCs to phones or video players." Damn straight it is.

[Photo courtesy of AP, thanks Ash]

[Smart People Play Tuba @ Feb 5th 2008 2:37PM]

. . . A little bit of media bias there, Donald?

[Chebwa @ Feb 5th 2008 3:33PM]

I wonder if he is posting to Engadget from a Linux machine.

I'm betting not.

[Gian @ Feb 5th 2008 3:57PM]

Dear Mr. Torvalds,

In the immortal words of Janet Jackson, "What have you done for me lately?"

Sincerely (kiss my ass),
A Former Linux User

Really, people. Doesn't this sound a lot like Edison taking a crap all over Tesla? I work in science and engineering, and all of this is just Linus's inner 12-year-old coming out. He's lonely and needs a cookie. So, he's slinging cheese whiz at the smart cute kid.

Gian

[JLTate @ Feb 5th 2008 4:46PM]

Apple isn't smart nor cute, and neither was your comment. Good riddance.

[Geir E @ Feb 5th 2008 6:46PM]

Media bias or not, Linus has good points:

- OS X and Vistas added complexity forces upgrades. But so does newer versions of window enviroments for Linux also that contain the same functionallity. But Linux users have a choice.
- HFS came out in 1986, HFS+ in ca 1998. We could do with a makeover or support a new file system. ext3, zfs etc would be wonderful.
- What linux does with OLPC, Eeee and so forth is great, linux on mobile devices are great. green is great, less poweruse is great.

So I welcome Linux on desktops and mobile devices with high hopes. But that doesn't make me want a macbook pro with os x any less.

[heffeque @ Feb 6th 2008 6:59PM]

Apple is working on adding ZFS fot Mac OS X. Leopard can read (still not write) ZFS drives. Give them time and you'll see it working wonders, specially for admins.

[justin @ Feb 5th 2008 2:38PM]

ohhhh man...that denim shirt is a party foul.

[Smart People Play Tuba @ Feb 5th 2008 2:49PM]

Not as bad as the bolo tie.

Oh wait . . . that's a lapel mic. Never mind.

[paragraph @ Feb 5th 2008 2:55PM]

Holy crap... it's a mic O.o

I thought he was pulling off the america sandwitch (you know, canadian tuxedo with a mexiacan tie... you don't call those things that? really? whatever...)

On Topic:

Just another article dealing with both Finland and Crap... you're on a roll today.

I don't think there is much to be said by apple except "have you looked at NTFS Lately?"

[KiwiBri @ Feb 5th 2008 4:46PM]

man.. he needs to stop buying oversized shirts

[psxp @ Feb 5th 2008 4:33PM]

man.. he needs to stop buying oversized shirts

[trevor @ Feb 5th 2008 6:10PM]

The shirt's bad, but dig those eyebrows, man. I think the first inch or so of his hairline slid down to his brow and just... stuck.

And no, the glasses don't hide them. Sorry bud.

[colin @ Feb 5th 2008 7:18PM]

Y'know, he doesn't look too bad in other pictures, for example this one from wikipedia:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/Linus_Torvalds.jpeg

[willyboy @ Feb 5th 2008 7:52PM]

Now what did he say about OS X and Windows? I have not used Linus(x). I hope that shirt is not indicative of the Linus(x) UI.....

[TJ Johnson @ Feb 5th 2008 7:51PM]

Frankly, I think those of you bringing up Linus's wardrobe are forgetting what he's known for. If the article were about someone like Gates or Jobs with their proprietary contributions to society, you'd expect designer fashion (even though the jury's still out with those two). Linus gave GNU to the masses and probably couldn't give a f*ck about what you all think concerning what he wears. Beyond that, the guy is brilliant and IMHO can wear whatever the hell he wants.

Speaking of Jobs, that reminds me...let us not forget what the basis for Apple's entire computing platform (OS X) resides on. If it weren't for LT, I doubt the terms Mac Head, Apple fanboy, or any other variation of the two would exist.

[Cal @ Feb 9th 2008 9:15PM]

But TJ, without Apple fanboys there would be no engadget =O

[matt @ Feb 5th 2008 2:38PM]

Someone with some sense. Finally.

[Blaktornado @ Feb 5th 2008 3:35PM]

Uhh... I take it you're not talking about his sense of dress...




lol it's true what they [don't] say about Linux users... they are a fusion of stereotypical PC and Mac users... eww... He's like "I'm a nerd and like doing accounting BUT I AM COOL, LOOK AT MY FUNKY POSE, YO!"

[ryan @ Feb 5th 2008 2:39PM]

Does anyone have any information on the shortcomings of HFS? I have never heard complaints, but I don't often discuss file systems.

[JC @ Feb 5th 2008 2:45PM]

Say what now? A bunch of hippies writing rant blogs in Starbucks constitutes "the most widely used *NIX in the world"? Surely you jest...

[Cornelius @ Feb 5th 2008 3:25PM]

It's not that it sucks per say. It's just antiquated (even HFS+). HFS+ is an update to HFS, which has been around since the 80s. It lacks a lot of features that newer file systems have such as block journaling, hard linking, encryption (hell even NTFS has this), true case-sensitivity, long filenames (>255 chars), etc.

Most of these features wouldn't be missed by regular users, but they come in handy for sys admins and some developers.

[bluvg @ Feb 5th 2008 4:16PM]

"hell even NTFS has this"

Actually, NTFS has all those things, and more.

[Examancer @ Feb 5th 2008 4:54PM]

I don't think NTFS has journaling, does it? Anyways, as a developer I have to agree with Linus.

He's not infallible, but he's usually pretty on the ball. This time I think he's dead right.

[Reid @ Feb 5th 2008 4:48PM]

Linux was awesome on the desktop 14 years ago.

Now I get paid to deal with Linux systems, and I use a Mac desktop at home and at work because I don't want to have to fiddle with my desktop system to make stuff work, I want to be able to use commercial software, and I want easy access to remote Windows *and* Unix systems.

Linux and Windows require too much fiddling, Linux doesn't support all of the software and media types I want to use, and Windows is too much of a pain to admin Unix systems from.

I think Linus has been seeing a lot of engineers who feel the same way I do since OS X matured in the 2002 timeframe.

[bluvg @ Feb 5th 2008 5:22PM]

Because of the way NTFS is implemented, it effectively has block-level journaling. It has had journaling for a long time now.

I missed one point from the earlier post, though--it doesn't support filenames greater than 255 characters (strictly file names, not absolute path length). Hopefully you can name your file in less than that. ;) If you're in the habit of creating abstracts for your files, consider putting it in one of the metadata fields instead....

[why not the LS2LS7? @ Feb 6th 2008 2:43AM]

HFS+ has block journaling, hard-linking and supports case sensitivity. You select case sensitivity when you format your volume.

Just to ask, if HFS+ didn't support hard links, how would Mac OS X even work on it? On UNIX, egrep, fgrep and grep are all hard links to each other, amongst plenty of other examples.

I don't think HFS+ supports more than 255 character filenames. But those are 255 unicode characters, which is quite a lot.

[James Grinter @ Feb 6th 2008 7:28AM]

I suspect this is all related to a recent mailing list discussion - which pointed out how HFS+ gets its Unicode filename mapping really, really wrong.

This is the thread - http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/git/2008/1/23/592628

[Dane @ Feb 6th 2008 1:54PM]

I've been a Mac lover for as long as I can remember. My mother had a Mac II with System 6, my father a 386 with Windows 3.1. I think it's obvious which I'd prefer :). Since then, pure Mac baby. Never once been tempted by Windows or Linux.l

I only say this because I want to emphasize that I'm a Mac fan and am not going to bash OS X because I like some other system more. No, I would sooner lose an arm than have to use another system day in day out.

That said, Linus is right. He's no doubt referring to a thread on the Git mailing list about how HFS mangles filenames and the incredible amount of pain that causes people that care about the *exact* name of a file. The issue is that HFS silently normalizes Unicode filenames.

So (to give a contrived example that may not actually be the case, but will at least illustrate the issue) say you create a file named "Mädchen" after your favorite Twin Peaks actress. OS X may instead actually create the file with a name of "Mӓdchen".

To us mere mortals those look identical, but to the computer they're different. That's a Bad Thing if you're doing anything that involves cryptographically verifying data, and that data includes filenames.

[kL @ Feb 6th 2008 2:16PM]

It has journalling. Dunno if by "block journalling" you mean something special, but whatever kind of journalling HFS+ has, it works for me.

It has hard links. I use them regularily. TimeMachine even has hardlinks for directories, which I think is unique to HFS (at least very uncommon).

FileVault feature of OS X encrypts home directory. Dunno if it's on filesystem level, but it's encrypted on disk and transparent to applications, which is good enough for me (granted, NTFS per-file encryption and compression is better).

[TEG @ Feb 5th 2008 2:39PM]

"If I were human, I believe my response would be 'go to hell'.... if I were human."

Linux is such a hodge-podge of a system I'm amazed that he would have the testicuar fortitude to make a claim against the most widely used *NIX in the world. Apple has been able to do something that GNU and Linux have not, created a *NIX for everyone and is cheap.

The OSX file system is like all other *NIX systems starting at '/' and working its way down, just because Apple does something differently than what you want, does not make it "utter crap".

TEG

[Fernando @ Feb 5th 2008 2:44PM]

Yeah I found that to be pretty amazing that he is downing a system that has a foundation based on his own Linux. He must be smoking something obviously so looking that that shirt he's wearing.

[JC @ Feb 5th 2008 2:46PM]

Say what now? A bunch of hippies writing rant blogs in Starbucks constitutes "the most widely used *NIX in the world"? Surely you jest...

[GH @ Feb 5th 2008 2:48PM]

....Cheap? Apple?

[Fernando @ Feb 5th 2008 2:53PM]

JC I think TEG is correct please look up your stats before you yourself look like the Starbucks drinking hippie writing the rant blog.

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp

[Aleks Clark @ Feb 5th 2008 2:58PM]

"based on his own linux"? uh, no. OSX is based on FreeBSD, which is much more awsome. also you don't seem to understand the difference between a filesystem and a directory structure. Apple fanbois++

[EQB @ Feb 5th 2008 3:01PM]

@ fernando,

Not to flame-bait, but OSX is NOT based on Linux. It is based on a variation of Free BSD. Totally different origins, similar vision.

[Tapia @ Feb 5th 2008 3:02PM]

Cheap??!!?!... I don't think so xD... Linux is free and it's great!

[Fernando @ Feb 5th 2008 3:05PM]

@EQB Touche I should of said UNIX based.

[zargon @ Feb 5th 2008 3:46PM]

Yeah, but never mind the fact that Apple decided to hide behind the BSD licensing. Where they could take code as they please and repackage it as their own for money. They were able to get a major jump start from all the hard work from the open source community, yet they hardly give anything back.

OS X would be nothing with out open source.

[danny @ Feb 5th 2008 4:03PM]

LuLz @ "testicular fortitude"

[Tech^Cellfish @ Feb 5th 2008 4:34PM]

Just because the file structure looks like Linux, doesn't mean it is the same. The file systems (allocation tables, fragmentation, file rights managements) may still be different.

[CongoZombie @ Feb 5th 2008 4:35PM]

@zargon "They were able to get a major jump start from all the hard work from the open source community, yet they hardly give anything back."

What is Darwin then?

[zargon @ Feb 5th 2008 4:52PM]

@CongoZombie

"What is Darwin then?"

A joke! Just another dime a dozen distro to choose from with limited support. Darwin is just the core frame work of a OS, you would be better off with FreeBSD if you wanted to stick with BSD or Debian, Slackware, SuSE, Gentoo, etc... All of which have much better support and are more refined.

There is no point in running Darwin unless you are looking to do development. Other than that, like I pointed out, there are much better solutions for a complete open source OS package.

[slacks @ Feb 5th 2008 6:21PM]

@zargon

"A joke!"

I think the point he was trying to make was that Darwin and Webkit are projects that give back to the community. That's the code. Someone, take it and do something. Who cares that it's not as supported. Almost no opensource software is supported. If you mean a supporting community, then I'm pretty sure Apple can't make people use the code that they release to the public.

[pooptypeuptypants @ Feb 5th 2008 2:39PM]

HA!

[Fivepoint @ Feb 5th 2008 2:40PM]

Man, this guy is a fashion disaster waiting to happen. The only thing worse than that tie, is his shirt... unless you count his haircut. That is far beyond the other two.

[blarvh @ Feb 5th 2008 2:46PM]

I prefer denim shirts over turtlenecks on my religious leaders.

[Luigi193 @ Feb 5th 2008 4:16PM]

May the great and powerful Steve smiteth thou

[Mark @ Feb 5th 2008 4:21PM]

Good thing no one prefers a sweat stained shirt.

[JLTate @ Feb 5th 2008 4:27PM]

@blarvh
Here you go: http://www.jltate.com/pictures/linus.jpg