From owner-freebsd-alpha Thu Jan 8 16:17:33 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id QAA22289 for alpha-outgoing; Thu, 8 Jan 1998 16:17:33 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from cynic.portal.ca (root@cynic.portal.ca [204.174.36.7]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id QAA22248 for ; Thu, 8 Jan 1998 16:16:56 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from cjs@portal.ca) Received: from localhost ([[UNIX: localhost]]) by cynic.portal.ca (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA24048; Thu, 8 Jan 1998 16:15:47 -0800 (PST) X-Authentication-Warning: cynic.portal.ca: cjs owned process doing -bs Date: Thu, 8 Jan 1998 16:15:46 -0800 (PST) From: Curt Sampson To: Terry Lambert cc: John Birrell , jkh@time.cdrom.com, jim.king@mail.sstar.com, freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Alpha port.. In-Reply-To: <199801062147.OAA12761@usr08.primenet.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Tue, 6 Jan 1998, Terry Lambert wrote: > > So what have you achieved? > > A unified VM and buffer cache. That's coming in NetBSD this year, from the looks of it. (And yes, it's about time too, isn't it? :-)) > Binary compatability. That's already there, isn't it? And even if FreeBSD has diverged that much, it's a relatively simple matter of adding a new emulation type. > A working install > process that doesn't require a net connection and can operate off a > CDROM instead for the non-Intel machines. In fact, we'd have something near that right now if, instead of an AXPpci33, I'd had on my desk last month one of those nice 500 MHz alphas that are currently sitting idle on certain FreeBSD hackers' desks. This is not a major project. I'm not trying to say that FreeBSD wouldn't benefit from an alpha port; but the reasons above are not really good reasons to put in the kind of effort it takes to do a port. The benefit the Alpha port would provide FreeBSD would be that it will force you to have damn clean code, and will discover a hell of a lot of bugs. (I spend a great deal of my alpha hacking time fixing things someone committed on another port.) cjs Curt Sampson cjs@portal.ca Info at http://www.portal.ca/ Internet Portal Services, Inc. Through infinite mist, software reverberates Vancouver, BC (604) 257-9400 In code possess'd of invisible folly.