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From: bry@netcom.com (Bryan Althaus)
Subject: Re: ISP hardware/software choices (performance comparison)
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Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 03:40:52 GMT
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Terry Lambert (terry@lambert.org) wrote:
: Two comments, not really related to the LWP (not "pthreads")
: duscussion going on:
: bry@netcom.com (Bryan Althaus) wrote:
: ] You just don't slap this stuff into an OS, it has to be designed before
: ] hand. This is the first thing you learn in OOP. Design up front.
: With respect, this is the difference between "programming" and
: "software engineering".
: Up front design is not an "OOP"/"non-OOP" issue. If you are
: doing software engineering, you design up front.
: Period.
True. What I really was trying to say is that SunOS 4.1.x had pthreads
slapped into it where as Solaris (among other OS's) was designed from the
start to support threads with support throughout the kernel. Also
designed in from the being with Solaris was support for SMP. I always
here people say "Other than SMP .." as if it's trivial to have an OS
support SMP. If it was so easy Linux and *BSD would have it.
Once you have SMP, all sorts of race conditions come into play and
since your a kernel hacker (I'm not) you know this. Add support
for kernel threads as does Solaris and I'm surprised you don't have
more respect for the job Sun has done with Solaris. Oh, add support for
soft real-time classes in if the task is too easy.
Do you really think had Sun taken SunOS 4.1.x and band-aided SMP &
kernel threads into the OS that the OS would be better than what they
currently have with Solaris 2.5?
I've heard/read that SunOS 4.1.x was starting to bust at the seems and
was in need of a rewrite.
Haven't you ever worked on application code that was written 10 years ago,
by numerous people, most who are no longer around, that was designed to
do a certain task but over the years has been added to until your
at the point that a complete rewrite is needed. A well, thought out
from the beginning, this is what the application now needs to do rewrite?
I just see Sun as coming to that conclusion when they came out with Solaris.
The idea that Solaris was just a marketing attempt just doesn't hold
water. SunOS already had alot of SYSV in it for the Wall St/Fortune 500
types.
: [ ... ]
: ] Next week when I upgrade to Solaris 2.5, I'm sure my "love affair" will
: ] continue. The only difference is I don't hate SunOS 4.1.x, it just that
: ] Solaris 2.x is better, its *supported*, it is state of the art.
: It is supported and 4.x is not, I grant you: the result of a
: business decision by Sun (one that not all of us agree with,
: but hey, it's their company to run into the ground).
: It is *not* "state of the art"; even if you limit yourself to
: discussing only commercially sold UNIX platforms, there's AIX,
: which has a lot of features that Solaris doesn't (and is a good
: example of "design up front").
Which version of AIX? Is AIX better than SunOS 4.1.x? FreeBSD?
Just trying to get a handle since I know your a bright person but
your bias for OS's is quite strong. SunOS & FreeBSD are you fav's
and I know you were high on UnixWare for awhile, so just *exactly*
what can Sun do to make Solaris better? Seriously. And name the
features AIX has ( I've heard AIX is nice ) that Solaris lacks
*maybe* they'll get in there.
You will be happy to know Solaris 2.x supports SunOS 4.x binaries:
SunOS 4.x applications:
Dynamically linked apps have been supported since 2.0;
support for statically linked apps was added in 2.3;
support for mixed dynamic/static apps is new in 2.5.
and some SunOS 4.1.x calls are back in 2.5:
Popular library routines from SunOS 4.x are now first-class
interfaces in libc:
memory:
bcmp, bcopy, bzero, index, rindex
random numbers:
random, srandom, initstate, setstate
process control:
killpg, getpriority, setpriority, ualarm, usleep,
wait3, wait4, getrusage, getwd, setregid, setreuid
regular expresssions:
re_comp, re_exec
standard i/o:
setbuffer, setlinebuf
miscellaneous:
ftime, getdtablesize, gethostod, gethostname,
sethostname, getpagesize, reboot