*BSD News Article 20218


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From: storm@binkley.cs.mcgill.ca (Marc Wandschneider)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: Re: [NetBSD-0.9] Some questions
Date: 30 Aug 1993 10:15:48 -0400
Organization: School of Computer Science, McGill University, Montreal
Lines: 38
Message-ID: <25t22k$1pk@binkley.cs.mcgill.ca>
References: <25p1ig$h5a@binkley.cs.mcgill.ca> <MYCROFT.93Aug29113616@trinity.gnu.ai.mit.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: binkley.cs.mcgill.ca

In article <MYCROFT.93Aug29113616@trinity.gnu.ai.mit.edu> mycroft@trinity.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Charles Hannum) writes:

>   few questions about it.  Most are a result of my own ignorance,
>   [...]
>No comment.

	There's a surprise :-)

>It is a file system that presents information about the kernel, like
>load average, hostname, copyright notice, etc.  I mount it on /kern:
>kern            /kern           kernfs  rw
>   Is this some 4.4 BSD feature?
>It has nothing to do with 4.4.

	This was set up for me, and fiddling around with it pretty much led
	me to the same conclusion.  However, the question is---What motivated
	this?  Is it used by a large number of programs, does it have some
	sort of performance benefit, etc...?

>No.  It means that if you didn't have a floating point coprocessor,
>the kernel will emulate it.  You don't need MATH_EMULATE if you have a
>coprocessor.

	That is what I thought originally---However, whenever I Try and remove
	that option from the kernel, programs like ps and w and others that
	floating point die on flt pt exceptions.  Does the world need to be
	rebuilt?



                                                    Toodlepip!
                                                    Marc 'em.

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marc Wandschneider					    Montreal, Canada
	"Satan has a stranglehold on my toilet and he won't let go!"
			   - frm the Weekly World News