Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!watmath!mks.com!alex
From: alex@mks.com (Alex White)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2
Subject: Re: Why is OS/2 a memory hog?
Message-ID: <1989Nov15.155723.4430@mks.com>
Date: 15 Nov 89 15:57:23 GMT
References: <89304.173824GIAMPAL@AUVM.BITNET> <3056@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU> <89307.092707GIAMPAL@AUVM.BITNET> <124944@felix.UUCP>
Reply-To: alex@mks.com (Alex White)
Organization: Mortice Kern Systems, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Lines: 34

In article <124944@felix.UUCP> martin@felix.UUCP (Martin McKendry) writes:
>OS/2 has almost everything that Unix System V Release 4 has, and then a
>few things.  It is very extensive, and in general contains the most

		``Almost everything''???

The most important feature of ALL Unix systems is lacking in OS/2.

		OS/2 has multi-TASKING.

		OS/2 DOES NOT HAVE multi-USER support.

In case the distinction escapes people, this means file protection,
and process protection (i.e. under OS/2 you can send whatever signal
you want to whatever process you want).

In the same amount of memory that will support OS/2 with one user,
you can support say 386/ix, with perhaps 8 users.  (which isn't
quite a fair comparison, because the 1 user gets a fancy graphics interface
which the 8 users don't.)

>current version of whatever feature you want.   For example, it has more
>support for process management -- lightweight processes & semaphores 
>etc -- than most versions of Unix.

Yes, but the question becomes, just how many different applications use
these things?  A lot of things have been done under Unix boxes without
threads.  Unix has the concept of fork, and people program to use that
construct.  OS/2 has the concept of threads, and people program to use that
construct.  The end result, is frequently the same.

I would also point out, that if its a good idea, then Unix will implement
it very quickly and simply.  Given unix source, I could put some form
of threads in place within a week.