Return to BSD News archive
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!comp.vuw.ac.nz!waikato!thebes.cc.waikato.ac.nz!hamish From: hamish@thebes.cc.waikato.ac.nz (Hamish Marson) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.development Subject: Re: Porting NetBSD to OS/2 and Windows NT Date: 17 Nov 1993 01:00:55 GMT Organization: The University of Waikato Lines: 57 Message-ID: <2cbt47$6j3@thebes.cc.waikato.ac.nz> References: <pcbsdCGE4oI.5zw@netcom.com> <2c22ac$fob@u.cc.utah.edu> <crt.753372922@tiamat.umd.umich.edu> <2c9aka$4fp@u.cc.utah.edu> <crt.753458826@tiamat.umd.umich.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: thebes.cc.waikato.ac.nz X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1] Rob Shady (crt@tiamat.umd.umich.edu) wrote: > terry@cs.weber.edu (A Wizard of Earth C) writes: > >OS/2 is single user... > > Don't confuse "single user" with "single tasking". > I'm not confusing the two at all, but there is a big difference between > being pseudo-multi-tasking, and being multi-user. We all know that, whats your point? OS/2 is single user multi-tasking, and multi-threading. Anyone disputing that? > >NetWare on XXX > > NetWare is an OS, not an application; don't confuse "non-preemptive > > multitasking" with "not multitasking". > How is Netware an operating system? I think this is arguable. It's close > enough I suppose, except you don't 'boot' netware, it relies on the > underlying operating system to support it. The only thing netware relies on from anything else, is starting (Something that DOS does very well, but thats where its abilites end, I've always said its a great boot monitor), and accessing the floppy drive for loading stuff when installing. Apart from that it relies on DOS for nothing. You can even remove it if you want to regain the memory and lose access to the floppy (Why they use DOS for even that I don't know, a floppy driver can't be that hard...) As for it being arguable that its an OS, define operating system. Does an OS need graphics? (Unix doesn't, it uses an app for that), Memory management? (Got it) The only thing arguable is whether an OS must be pre-emptive or not. For a server of filesystems (Which is what netware is all about), I don't think it is. All it does is get requests from the net, anc service them. No pre-emption needed. If somebody tells you its a great compute platform, tell them to get their head examined. Its not. Netware wins for file service, and Unix wins for the rest... (I don't even rate VMS :) > >Mac on DOS > > Again, don't confuse "single user" with "single tasking". > Same as above.. > > Terry Lambert > > terry@cs.weber.edu > >--- > >Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present > >or previous employers. -- ====================================================================== | Hamish Marson | | Systems Programmer | | | Computer Services | INTERNET h.marson@waikato.ac.nz | | University of Waikato | PHONE +64 7 8562889 xt 8181 | | New Zealand | FAX +64 7 8384066 | ===========Disclaimer :- Remember. You heard it here first.===========