From: keller@cse.ucsc.edu (Jeffrey Keller) Subject: Re: GNU kids on the block? (sorry... couldn't resist) Date: 28 Aug 1992 21:46:51 GMT
In article <1992Aug27.135703.9312@crd.ge.com> davidsen@crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes:
...
> Multi-server is the CISC
>of software, a sort of hypercube of processes rather than processors.
...
>
> I like the Linux RISC-like approach, do only a few things, but very
>well and very fast. Build the complex functions out of sequences of
>simple operations. To me this means simple kernel calls and the library
>providing the complex stuff.
>
> Don't take this as a rejection of multi-server by me, I'm unconvinced
>rather than convinced against. Sort of a software agnostic.
>
>--
>bill davidsen, GE Corp. R&D Center; Box 8; Schenectady NY 12345
> I admit that when I was in school I wrote COBOL. But I didn't compile.
You realize that microkernel people would take the opposite position,
right? That the microkernel is RISC-like, stripped down to the
essentials, with the server processes corresponding to subroutines?
And that a conventional kernel (even Linux) is CISC-like, trying to
anticipate what the user will need and handle it internally? And, of
course, they'd probably argue that just as it is easier to tweak a
subroutine than microcode, it's easier to tweak a discrete server than
a part of the kernel. Just an observation.
By the way, I also have mixed feelings about microkernels. On the one
hand, I don't believe they can ever be as efficient as macrokernels;
on the other, (despite what Larry McVoy says) I believe that further
evolution of OSes is essential and that microkernels can foster that.
I also think that it might be easier to make a microkernel secure,
but I'm not at all sure of it.