Re: os9 and linux

Alan Cox (alan@cymru.net)
Thu, 13 Jun 1996 09:55:53 +0100 (BST)


> I was impressed when Linux began to support modules, although
> this is very different from the tao of os-9. I realize that the design
> strategy b/t linux and os-9 is soo different, little could be crossed
> between the two. However, with all the talk of reorganizing the
> linux drivers in a logical fasion, i felt that os-9 design philosophy
> might be interesting to some.

There are aspects of it we could do with more support for, although I think
we are pretty good on the whole

o OS/9 makes it very easy to add a device that you already have a
driver for. You just load it. If there are several variants you can just
build a config block. We have some analogies to that in the net code, but
the most obvious one is the serial driver "setserial" support.

o OS/9 is very modular. You really can decide "no networking", or even
"no file system" and it works.

I'd agree there are things we can gain in these areas. I've also got an OS/9
box although it doesnt exactly do a lot at the moment. More modularity and
cleaner modules are what it offers.

Alan