Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!tank!rtp1
From: rtp1@tank.uchicago.edu (raymond thomas pierrehumbert)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Re: Why is Domain OS so big?
Message-ID: <6679@tank.uchicago.edu>
Date: 12 Dec 89 04:37:29 GMT
References: <8912081415.AA12414@richter.mit.edu> <267@cancol.oz>
Organization: University of Chicago
Lines: 36

I have received many interesting comments on this, and provide a
digestion of some of the more critical ones:

(1)  My size estimates seem large. 
This is true.  I did a crude estimate originally, based on df, and
came up with the almost 150mb figure. I did a better estimate by
taking a du, and subtracting the "install" directory and my "users"
directory,which is where all our own stuff resides (except for
Kermit, C and Fortran compilers).  Result is 120MB, not 150.

(2) The stuff in sau10 is sophisticated scan diagnostics, which
is large by its very nature.  
Well, at least it's nice to know what I'm getting.  Certainly,
I'm all for good hardware diagnostics. Downtime, and MyTime are
a lot more expensive than disk space

(3) You could free up some space in sau10 by eliminating the scan/graphics
diagnostics for 40 and 80 plane controllers, if you don't have them.
The rest of the stuff is really needed.

(4)  Comparing the Sun 3/50's with Prism was apples and oranges.
Point well taken, Indeed, the 3/50's were running an old Sun OS,
and if they ever upgrade, they'll be in trouble.  Further, 
object code for RISC architectures like Prism is always larger
than for CISC architectures.  Asking around, I have found that the
OS for Sun 4's, Sparcs, and for SG Iris's are not much smaller than
10.1p

So, all seems to be right with the world-- except I wish disk space
were cheaper.  Seems we are perhaps beset by the "creeping featurism"
that the Unix gods used to inveigh against.  I do wonder sometime
about just what has happened to Unix.  I need my DN10000, and I need
my MacII's, but the fact is that the 1MB operating system on the MacII
does about 80% of what an OS ought to, and am not a little disconcerted
that getting the remaining 20% takes 119MB.  This, of course, is not
an Apollo-Specific comment.