Tanenbaum–Torvalds debate mentioned how he developed Linux specifically for the Intel 80386 because it was partly intended as a learning exercise for Torvalds himself; while he conceded that this made the kernel itself less portable than MINIX, he asserted that this was an acceptable design principle, as it made the application programming interface simpler and more portable. For this reason, he stated, "linux is more portable than minix." Following Linus' reply, Tanenbaum argued that the limitations of MINIX relate to him being a professor, stating the requirement for the system to be able to run on the rather limited hardware of the
MINIX file system MINIX file system The MINIX file system is the native file system of the MINIX operating system. MINIX was written from scratch by Andrew S. Tanenbaum in the 1980s, as a Unix-like operating system whose source code could be used freely in education. The MINIX file system was designed for use with MINIX; it copies the basic structure of the Unix File System but avoids any complex features in the interest of keeping the source code clean, clear and simple, to meet the overall goal of MINIX to be a useful teaching aid. When Linus Torvalds first started writing his