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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!vixie!efficacy!vixie From: vixie@pc.home.vix.com (Paul A Vixie) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: BSD for Alpha ? Date: 3 Nov 93 01:43:58 Organization: Vixie Enterprises Lines: 28 Message-ID: <VIXIE.93Nov3014358@pc.home.vix.com> References: <2b5qb7$oac@vega.info.isbiel.ch> <wilko.752255896@spoetnix.idca.tds.philips.nl> NNTP-Posting-Host: pc.home.vix.com In-reply-to: wilko@idca.tds.philips.nl's message of 2 Nov 93 15:58:16 GMT > Excuse me asking: OSF/1 is essentially BSD running on top of (sort of) the > Mach kernel. Is there something special for which you want to run vanilla > BSD? Well, yes. The kernel on DEC's demo machine (axposf.pa.dec.com) is 5709144 bytes long. 5 megabytes. There's an awful lot of stuff in there but it's not as big as the generic kernel, which is 7918392 bytes long (8 megabytes). I believe that a BSD port to the Alpha would have a smaller, simpler, faster kernel. /usr on that machine has 965418 kilobytes (965 megabytes) of software. I know this is a demo machine and probably has every layered product known to man on it, but geez. That's a lot of bits. I'm betting that users of their AXP-PC systems feel a little bit cramped when they load OSF. I'm sure if BSD were available, DEC would sell more iron since folks who want something small and fast will at least consider them. DEC AXP is the fastest processor in the world right now, and the software for it sure makes use of all that horsepower. Disclaimer: I used to work for DEC. I didn't speak for them then, and I don't speak for them now. I like their hardware (and always have), I'm not so sure about their software (and never have been). -- Paul Vixie Redwood City, CA <paul@vix.com> decwrl!vixie!paul