Re: Mach under linux (nee Shocking News from Apple.)

James Mastros (root@jennifer-unix.dyn.ml.org)
Wed, 5 Nov 1997 14:00:15 -0500 (EST)


On Tue, 4 Nov 1997, teunis wrote:
> > In the past, people always put an existing operating system on top of
> > Mach.
[...]
> > All these systems are known as
> > single-server, because the traditional OS features all reside in on Mach
> > task.
> >
> > There is only one true multi-server system on top of Mach, the Hurd.
> >
> > Martin
>
> I just thought of a connection though:
> A multiserver kernel is one that serves multiple OS's (or OS
> flavours) at once, right?
That was my understanding... but I don't know all that much about minikernel
systems.

> Doesn't that make Linux multiserver?
> (dosemu + maybe others? :)
> [wine doesn't count as it actually emulates the environment rather than
> providing an environment the OS can run within...]
> (I suppose that would rule ibcs out too...)
It's only single-server unless you can come up with another example <G>.
(Executor (Mac emu) dosn't count, since it's system folder is intel code,
not emulated.)

> Couldn't Linux run a Mach kernel?
I don't see why you couldn't port mach to linux. However, it would probably
be on the same order of magnitutide as writing all new drivers for a win95
system to make it run under linux.

> It would be easier than that multiprocessor Win95 system mentioned :)
I'm not so certian.

> I wonder what paging/VM environment Mach would need? <grin>
It shouldn't need any. Just make it think its on a machine with 2^30 bytes
memory and have it be a userspace program.

> G'day, eh? :)
> - Teunis

-=- James Mastros
---
When the annals of distributed computing are written, and the name 'Bovine'
appears in there, I can say "Hey, I was a part of that, I checked .0012% of
the keyspace".
-=- Brian Wilson <wilsonb@mindspring.net>
Go to www.distributed.net before I come make you!