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Xref: sserve comp.os.minix:22402 comp.os.386bsd.misc:538 comp.os.386bsd.questions:3413 comp.os.linux:45825 Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!saimiri.primate.wisc.edu!caen!malgudi.oar.net!news.ysu.edu!usenet.mcs.kent.edu!condor.mcs.kent.edu!delozier From: delozier@condor.mcs.kent.edu (Greg Delozier) Newsgroups: comp.os.minix,comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.386bsd.questions,comp.os.linux Subject: Re: Choosing a Unix like OS for a pc (plan 9 compilation time) Date: 30 Jun 1993 20:17:25 GMT Organization: Kent State University Lines: 62 Message-ID: <20sscl$brc@usenet.mcs.kent.edu> References: <C8wC29.9qq@world.std.com> <C9E4J4.Fsw.1@cs.cmu.edu> <FOX.93Jun29142638@graphics.cs.nyu.edu> <741438841.9926@minster.york.ac.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: mcs.kent.edu In article <741438841.9926@minster.york.ac.uk> forsyth@minster.york.ac.uk writes: > regarding Christopher Maeda's point, >the secret is in which half of the supposed `functionality' >you choose to leave out. (for the system as whole, start with X11.) >when people actually use the Oberon environment or Plan 9 >they often find that to get real work done they neither need nor value >a lot of the crud others regard as necessary. As both an Oberon and Unix/X11 programmer, I can attest to the truth of this point. A small set of well-chosen features can really speed up certain kinds of work, and for a lot of the things I do (prototyping image processing algorithms, for instance) I am far more productive with Oberon than using, for instance, C/Unix. Sometimes it's useful to carry lots of things around with you, and sometimes it's just extra weight. The secret is, indeed, in deciding what really is 'functional' and what's just there taking up space. By the way, DOS/Oberon currently ships as a 32-bit operating system/ compiler/GUI toolkit/DOS extender/painting package/document editor/ techical illustrator/scripting system in well under a megabyte of files. I had someone ask how many floppies he should bring in to get a copy of Oberon, and when I told him just one, he nearly dropped. The GUI toolkit gets frequently compared to NextStep, and looks *great*. It is a great example of small, simple, and functional. So what's left out? Preemtive multitasking, VM, heirarchical directories (though DOS provides these) TCP/IP, etc. etc. So why discuss this in a unix group? Simple. I think the world could benefit from a small, simple, 32-bit clean operating system/development environment running on a 386-ish platform without the huge overhead that Linux, 386BSD, OS/2, etc places on the system. For instance, I have to have network code running to get 386bsd to draw a line on the screen via X-window calls. Is this the best use of the hardware? On a Sparcstation, maybe you can lose this overhead in sheer processor performance, but on my 386, for instance, X-window calls are just not going to do convincing 3-d animation. Oberon does. 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? -greg --- Greg DeLozier/Senior Scientific Analyst/Loral Defense Systems