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From: mjacob@sun.com (Matt Jacob)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: Re: Sparcstation and SunOS versions
Keywords: SunOS
Message-ID: <3722@brazos.Rice.edu>
Date: 1 Dec 89 08:47:57 GMT
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Organization: Sun-Spots
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X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 8, Issue 215, message 3 of 12

>3) The 4.0.3c release just adds support for the new sun4c kernel
>architecture, so it is a superset of the plain 4.0.3 release.

True.

>My
>understanding is that the kernel itself works on both sun4 and sun4c
>processors,

While there is a 80% identity of kernel code, the remaining 20% which is
quite different (new OPEN BOOT prom support, (self configuring (heh-heh)
kernels, new SCSI architecture, new bus type (SBus)), makes that statement
a bit *mmmmmmmm*......

>and that system code outside the kernel which is specific to
>each architecture is set up for example in /export/exec/kvm/sun4 and
>/export/exec/kvm/sun4c. If your machine only needs to serve one
>architecture, these will simplify to /usr/kvm. 

This is true. kvm is the place to put all kernel architecture specific
userland programs.