Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!ukc!mucs!logitek!grep!vic
From: vic@grep.co.uk (Victor Gavin)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.internals
Subject: Re: Compressed executables
Message-ID: <1991Jan23.123808.22159@grep.co.uk>
Date: 23 Jan 91 12:38:08 GMT
References: <1991Jan15.204849@IASTATE.EDU> <118868@uunet.UU.NET> <3977@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Reply-To: vic@grep.co.uk (Victor Gavin)
Organization: Grep Limited, LEEDS, UK
Lines: 16

In article <3977@skye.ed.ac.uk> richard@aiai.UUCP (Richard Tobin) writes:
>In article <118868@uunet.UU.NET> rbj@uunet.UU.NET (Root Boy Jim) writes:
>>I once suggested to Chris Torek that the kernel should execute
>>compressed programs. He groaned.
>
>This has been done by Acorn in their RISC iX port of 4.3.  The compression
>is done in such a way that the file can still be demand paged.  

And perhaps they could also explain why it doesn't slow the system down, coz if
the processor has enough time to decompress something coming off the disk, it
has enough time to go and run another program.

Every Acorn person I ask this question of, waffles and side-tracks.


		vic