From owner-freebsd-hackers Fri May 24 19:22:55 1996 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id TAA29416 for hackers-outgoing; Fri, 24 May 1996 19:22:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from seagull.rtd.com (root@seagull.rtd.com [198.102.68.2]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id TAA29409 for ; Fri, 24 May 1996 19:22:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from dgy@localhost) by seagull.rtd.com (8.6.12/1.2) id TAA07299; Fri, 24 May 1996 19:22:48 -0700 From: Don Yuniskis Message-Id: <199605250222.TAA07299@seagull.rtd.com> Subject: Re: Mac Linux: Nothing to worry about :-) To: jehamby@lightside.com (Jake Hamby) Date: Fri, 24 May 1996 19:22:47 -0700 (MST) Cc: freebsd-hackers@freefall.FreeBSD.org (FreeBSD hackers) In-Reply-To: from "Jake Hamby" at May 24, 96 11:28:03 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > There is one fortunate thing out of all this: The OSF and Apple-developed > source code to the Mach kernel and Linux server are all freely available > and covered under a standard BSD-style copyright! Whoohoo! This means a > Free/NetBSD port to PowerMac is now feasible! Unfortunately I lack the > PPC assembly language and kernel hacking knowledge to undertake such a > beast, however I sincerely hope somebody else (Terry?) decides to take > this on. > > The question is: Would it be best to build a BSD "personality" > server on top of a Mach kernel, as MkLinux is built, or scrap that idea I assume MkLinux is a single server? > and build a traditional BSD kernel? OSF claims the advantage of Mach > lies in SMP, real-time, and portability (port the microkernel to a new > architecture, then simply recompile the Linux server), but obviously this > is going to use more RAM and CPU than a "native" BSD kernel. Comments? There are many performance hits with the microkernel approach. Though, with today's screamers and memory prices so low, I wonder if it really matters? And, while "multipersonality" hosts are feasible, I doubt anyone has ironed that issue out completely... Just my $0.02...