The computer of Linus Torvalds

My experience as developer ranges from solo artist to member of large, enterprise projects. That experience has given me various insights about hardware, operating systems, programming languages, teamwork, and management.

One observation is about a combination of those aspects, specifically hardware and development teams: The minimum hardware requirements for a system are (most likely) the hardware that the developers are using. If you equip developers with top-of-the-line hardware, the system when delivered will require top-of-the-line hardware to run acceptably. As a corollary, if you equip developers with mid-line hardware, the delivered system will run acceptably on that level of hardware.

Developers may often complain about slow hardware, and point out that top-level hardware is not that expensive, and may actually reduce expenses once you factor in the time to pay developers to wait for slow compiles and tests. That is a valid point, but it loses sight of the larger point of a system that performs for a user with hardware that is less than top-of-the-line.

With fast hardware, developers do not see the performance problems. With slower hardware, developers are aware of performance issues, and build a better system. (Or at least one that runs faster.)

Which brings us to Linux Torvalds, the chief developer for the Linux kernel. More specifically, his computer.

A recent article on slashdot lists the specifications of his new computer. It sounds really nice. Fast. Powerful. And just what will lead Torvalds (and Linux) into the "performance trap". Such a computer will hide performance issues from Linus. That may send Linux into a direction that lets it run well on high-end hardware, and not so well on lower-end hardware or older systems.

With a high-end system to run and test on, Torvalds will miss the feedback when some changes have negative affects on performance on slower hardware. Those changes may work "just fine" on his computer, but not so well on other computers.

I recognize that the development effort of the Linux kernel has a lot of contributors, not all of whom have top-level hardware. Those developers may see performance issues. They may even raise them. But do they have a voice? Will their concerns be heard, and addressed? Or will Torvalds reject the issues as complaints and arrogantly tell those developers get "real computers and stop whining". His reputation suggests the latter.

If Torvalds does fall into the "performance trap" it may have significant effects on the future success of Linux. Linux may become "tuned" to high-performance hardware, running acceptably on expensive systems but slow and laggy on cheaper hardware. It may run well on new equipment but poorly on older systems.

That, in turn, may force users of older, slower hardware to re-think their decision to use Linux.