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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au!munnari.oz.au!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!MathWorks.Com!news2.near.net!news.delphi.com!usenet From: John Dyson <dysonj@delphi.com> Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: 4.4-lite? Date: Mon, 18 Jul 94 14:11:59 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) Lines: 39 Message-ID: <Zi2ziVX.dysonj@delphi.com> References: <2vgvc7$3tg@spruce.cic.net> <301rrc$cmv@masala.cc.uh.edu> <Csxxqo.DsM@newsserver.aggregate.com> <3097eh$m2h@pdq.coe.montana.edu> <Bs2yi5F.dysonj@delphi.com> <michaelv.774429899@ponderous.cc.iastate.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: bos1d.delphi.com X-To: Michael L. VanLoon <michaelv@iastate.edu> Michael L. VanLoon <michaelv@iastate.edu> writes: >John, I don't mean to be hostile, so please don't take it that way, >but several things you're saying just don't quite seem to sync with >me. I'm sure you have the best of intentions, so please bear with me, >and enlighten me if you can. I must be over-simplifying the effort, because most of the changes are clerical in nature. I see that it would be about a 1 month effort to get the machine dependency bugs out (about 1/3-1/2 of our release cycle.) But since FreeBSD is truely starting from 4.4Lite, and not backing into it, some of the complications are probably mitigated. The biggest problem that I have with the continued and biased assertions that FreeBSD is not multi-platform capable is that it is propaganda that becomes self-fulfilling. If this continues -- my strategy is to buy a sparc and do the port (starting with the code contributed to NetBSD.) Some of FreeBSD is not applicable to a sparc (page table preloading), but there are other things that can be added. Most if not all of the machine dependent enhancements to the VM system reside in the machine dependent directories. So, if anyone wants to do a port, the minimum port to the FreeBSD kernel should be little different in complexity than to NetBSD. (FreeBSD has certain pmap entry points that can be simulated by the slower, older ones.) I am less trying to put anyone elses work down, but trying to mitigate the damage that is caused by partially-correct self-fulfilling assumptions. (I am trying to get FreeBSD out of its box -- it can do lots more that it currently is.) Please do not take my position as anti-NetBSD, I am just sad that the user base that is not Intel based cannot currently use FreeBSD -- it has a lot to offer in the performance arena. There are rumors of ports to other machines, but I am not sure of the progress (I do not keep up with such things.) John dyson@implode.root.com