Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mtxinu!shore
From: shore@mtxinu.COM (Melinda Shore)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386
Subject: Re: binary Mach distribution for 386
Message-ID: <1991Jan12.045334.13970@mtxinu.COM>
Date: 12 Jan 91 04:53:34 GMT
References: <13963@uswat.UUCP> <1991Jan4.140341.11874@granite.cr.bull.com> <1991Jan11.073346.14753@mtxinu.COM> <1991Jan11.200913.15652@ico.isc.com>
Reply-To: shore@mtxinu.com (Melinda Shore)
Organization: mt Xinu, Berkeley
Lines: 28

In article <1991Jan11.200913.15652@ico.isc.com> rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) writes:
>That's actually less surprising in the 386 world.  Context switches on the
>386 (assuming a full switch--a TSS change via call gate) are relatively
>expensive, and interrupts are even worse because of the MM of dealing with
>the PICs.  Open question (I suspect): Is Mach 3.0 a bad match to the 386
>(based on context-switch frequency and cost)?

Whether or not it's a bad match is somewhat moot - much of the 3.0
development is being done on 386 machines, and Rick has a Toshiba
laptop he seems always to have with him that's running 3.0.  One
advantage, I think, of this is that it encourages the folks at CMU
to pay particular attention to performance issues.

>When does OSF plan to move to the 3.0 kernel?

This is probably best left to the OSF to answer (their direction
shifts frequently, especially within the RI), but I haven't seen
any of them lurking in these parts.  The last official story I heard
was that they are not committed to moving to a 3.0 kernel,
and are looking at other interesting operating systems as well to
be used as a possible kernel for OSF/2.  They are, however, putting
significant effort into 3.0 development, and are driving some of the
design decisions.  In fact, they're sponsoring a 3.0 design review
meeting next month.
-- 
               Software longa, hardware brevis
Melinda Shore                                 shore@mtxinu.com
mt Xinu                              ..!uunet!mtxinu.com!shore