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Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.development Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!olivea!hal.com!decwrl!news.kpc.com!amd!amdahl!netcomsv!netcom.com!pcbsd From: pcbsd@netcom.com (PCBSD Development Manager) Subject: Re: Porting NetBSD to OS/2 and Windows NT Message-ID: <pcbsdCGE4oI.5zw@netcom.com> Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8] References: <crt.753111416@tiamat.umd.umich.edu> Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1993 18:00:16 GMT Lines: 44 Rob Shady (crt@tiamat.umd.umich.edu) wrote: : pcbsd@netcom.com (PCBSD Development Manager) writes: : >I am working on a port of the current NetBSD sources to OS/2. In order : Not to sound ignorant, but what the heck are you talking about??? NetBSD : is an *OPERATING SYSTEM*, you don't port it to another *OPERATING SYSTEM* : you port it to a Platform, ie: NetBSD 'ports' to Intel 386/486's, Sun 3's, : some HP, etc... NOT to OS/2, Windows/NT, DOS, or ANYTHING similar.. : What exactly do you think you would be able to accomplish, assuming you : could EVER get NetBSD to run "under" OS/2 or Windows/NT???? It is possible to consider an operating system a platform, which is what I am doing. The PCBSD project is writing a xxxBSD kernel that would run as a subsystem on OS/2 and NT, and provide all of the Section 2 calls. PCBSD is targeted to support all of the NetBSD, POSIX, Solaris and (eventually) System V system calls. What that means is that some of the Section 3 and up code needs to be modified to be able to work with desktop filesystems transparently. One of the most frustrating differences on desktop is the \r\n used to delimit the end of line in text files (whereas it is just \n on UNIX). As to what the port would accomplish: Businesses with UNIX applications would be able to offer their products on Desktop platforms without having to spend a fortune porting their code. New code would be written using a standard set of libraries, and run on desktop and UNIX systems alike. Another reason is to be able to take the rich UNIX environment of apps (such as shells and development tools and...) and make them available to PC users. +-------------------+ +-------------------+ | Hardware Platform | | OS/2 Platform | +-------------------+ +-------------------+ | xxxBSD Kernel | | xxxBSD Kernel | +-------------------+ +-------------------+ | UNIX Apps | | UNIX Apps | +-------------------+ +-------------------+ -- --------------------------------- ------------------------------ -- PCBSD Development Manager -- -- Service Commitment Support -- --------------------------------- ------------------------------