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Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!torn!nott!cunews!revcan!micor!latour!diana!db From: db@diana.ocunix.on.ca (Dyane Bruce) Subject: Re: NetBSD+FreeBSD merge urged! Message-ID: <1993Sep20.213150.13549@diana.ocunix.on.ca> Organization: db Software References: <1993Sep18.204206.29629@diana.ocunix.on.ca> <CDn8xn.33q@sztaki.hu> Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1993 21:31:50 GMT Lines: 86 In article <CDn8xn.33q@sztaki.hu> pink@fsz.bme.hu writes: >In article 29629@diana.ocunix.on.ca, db@diana.ocunix.on.ca (Dyane Bruce) writes: >>In article <Ygam_WG00WBME1btYl@andrew.cmu.edu> "Alex R.N. Wetmore" <aw2t+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes: >> That's great news.... Gives me something to tell my Linux ... >I remember somebody (Terry Lambert?) mentioned a couple of months ago that >he has SCO emulation running, but can't release the code, cause it has You are right... It was Terry (Wizard of Earth C, I've read that book too Terry :-) ) [I've ruthlessly trimmed to save bandwidth, maybe too much trimming. The attributions might now be a little unclear. My apologies. ] Sender: news@fcom.cc.utah.edu Organization: Weber State University, Ogden, UT References: <1993Jul27.053721.6646@spcvxb.spc.edu> <1993Jul28.035328.2892@fcom.cc.utah.edu> <1993Jul28.025606.6655@spcvxb.spc.edu> Date: Thu, 29 Jul 93 01:07:58 GMT >In article <1993Jul28.035328.2892@fcom.cc.utah.edu>, terry@cs.weber.edu (A Wizard of Earth C) writes: ... >> LKM is "Loadable Kernel Modules".. it allows you to load/unload device ... >> An execution class is basically a program loader. For instance, using code >> I can't give out, I can run ISC 386 and SCO Xenix binaries on my machine >> (if I'd spent another week, the Xenix stuff would be distributable) as long >> as they are statically linked. > > This is certainly interesting. What percentage of these binaries are static- >ally linked? (Out of curiousity - I really don't know the answer) For SCO Xenix -- all of them. For ISC UNIX 3.1 (the one I was interested in running binaries from) most of them. I can't distribute the ISC code because it's derived from some unclean sources. And now that we have a console driver that emulates the SCO console driver, a little hacking lets me run the commercial version of WordPerfect on my machine... and SCO Professional (a Lotus clone) and SCO FoxBase (a DBase III+ clone). I still ... [End of quoted article] I guess I'll just be patient... I would have been willing to write a SCO program loader, but haven't even got a 386 at home yet.. :-( Little matter of personal finances due to a start up consulting firm I'm involved with... :-) :-) >On the other hand i don't realy understand why on earth would one want to >run DOS/Windows under NetBSD. I don't think that it would be so fast/compatible DOS will always be a dog to run under unix... DOS has no concept of being to do things in the background. No concept of asynchronous I/O completion i.e. it spin loops waiting for I/O completion, waiting for keyboard ready is brutal. Still, it can be very usable for running the "dusty deck" old Miserable DOS program, or the occasional word processing. You aren't going to compile anything anyway under DOS... You'd be using the native unix. It also sure beats rebooting under dos (ugh) for some stupid little thing.. Re-writing the virtual BIOS can help a lot, as anytime a BIOs trap is taken you can suspend the virtual DOS... Windows on the other time can be faster under unix as WABI has shown. The WINE project will result in a PD version of WABI. It can be argued that the Windows API can't be any worse then the X11 API. :-) ( I have been told that the Windows API "grew" rather than being designed, so I find that a little hard to believe. :-) ) It is going to take a decent DOS/Windows emulator to wean people away from an program loader system of the 60's to a real operating system, of at least the 70's :-) Of course, the dreaded legal challenge is always possible.... There is a legal case on in the states that might enable MS to make WABI illegal.. (As they can argue that the Windows API can't be copied.) -- Dyane Bruce db@diana.ocunix.on.ca 29 Vanson Ave. Nepean On, K2E 6A9 So who first started the tradition of 613-225-9920 putting witty sayings in sigs anyway?