*BSD News Article 37173


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From: casper@fwi.uva.nl (Casper H.S. Dik)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: Is BSD a Microkernel OS?
Date: 19 Oct 1994 11:29:33 +0100
Organization: FWI, University of Amsterdam
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Distribution: world
Message-ID: <382sed$25c@mail.fwi.uva.nl>
References: <mselbyCxw11q.n3u@netcom.com>
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mselby@netcom.com (Michael Selby) writes:

>	Is BSD a microkernel operating system? I have often heard that 
>the microkernel OS is head and shoulders above monolithic.

No.  But don't let the microkernel-hype get you.

From a design point of view, microkernels are superior, because they
force modularity.  However, you can use modularisation in a monolithic
kernel too.  And people have discovered that you really can't
afford to build a pure micro kernel, it's just too slow.

Casper