From: terry@cs.weber.edu (A Wizard of Earth C) Subject: Re: Choosing a Unix like OS for a pc (plan 9 compilation time) Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 23:44:04 GMT
In article <20sscl$brc@usenet.mcs.kent.edu> delozier@condor.mcs.kent.edu (Greg Delozier) writes:
[ ... ]
>So *my* wish (requirement) list for a 32-bit OS goes like this:
>
>1. 32-bit flat address space for all processes.
>2. Heirarchical directory system
>3. Reasonable windowing system with low overhead and simple image model
>4. " printing " " " " " " " "
>5. Interrupt driven serial i/o (and maybe print spooler)
>6. C (maybe C++) or Oberon compilers. (Oberon is a clean, small OOP language)
>7. Small enough for one person to understand.
>
>IMHO:
>
>386bsd & Linux meet 1,2,5,6
>Oberon meets 1,3,4,5,6,7
>DOS with djgpp meets 1,2,(3?),5,6 (and maybe 7)
>
>Any suggestions or comments?
o 386BSD meets 3 & 7 in my book (you *can* turn off networking and
use UNIX domain sockets).
o I don't think anyhing on a 386 meets 1
o DOS doesn't meet 3 or 5 without additional software (making it no
longer DOS), and, unless source has just been released, doesn't
meet 7 either unless you work for MS or DR or IBM or ...
DOS is also probably immediately disqualified for 32-bit OS on the grounds
that it isn't 32-bit (10 bits + 4 bits of segment for 640k total) and isn't
an OS (it's a non-reeentrant real mode interrupt handler -- it doesn't even
have a non-preemptive scheduler, like MS Windows). You could, of course,
use it as a program launcher for highsoft C programs (they're 32 bit) or
MS Windows programs (they're not 32 bit) , but that wouldn't make *it* 32
bit... it would make *it* a glorified boot loader.
Terry Lambert
terry@icarus.weber.edu