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From: ghelmer@dsuvax.uucp (Guy Helmer)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Most requested features in MINIX...
Message-ID: <1991Feb6.151414.23272@dsuvax.uucp>
Date: 6 Feb 91 15:14:14 GMT
References: <8930@star.cs.vu.nl> <910205260@uwalt.nl.mugnet.org>
Organization: Dakota State University
Lines: 46

In <910205260@uwalt.nl.mugnet.org> waltje@uwalt.nl.mugnet.org (Fred 'The Rebel' van Kempen) writes:

>Andy writes:
>>>3. Multi-threaded filesystem
>> Never.
>OK, it would be horribly complex.  Why not using message buffering then,
>as we did back in 1.2 ????  It worked great then!

I never saw much about this message buffering --- where did it go?

>>>10. Support for larger buffer cache on 80386 machines.  (also done?)
>        If MS-DOS can do it, we can do it as well.  On '286 machine,
>only the 64+64 limit is a limit.

If you're going to break the 128K barrier, PLEASE ADD SWAPPING, TOO!

640K or 1Mb (which is what the great majority of users of PC-Minix have)
is not enough memory to let a system run uninhibited.  Too many things
either die quietly or can't be done on a system will several processes
running.  Swapping would be a big win for the occasional times when
memory needs to be overcommitted, and overcommit will occur more frequently
if processes become larger.  (I bet the noticeable overhead from a
swapper would be greatly reduced by a quality scheduling algorithm)

>>>16. Better scheduling algorithms.
>> It is a single user machine.  Round robin should be good enough for that.
Simple round robin is ok until you start running more than one process :-)
Even real UNIX V7 has a more complex scheduler.

>>>20. Long filenames.
>> Never.
>Hurray.  Usually, 14 chars is long enough.  However....
Long file names as part of an implementation of Joy's Fast File System
would be quite awesome, and a wonderful enhancement for MINIX; this
doesn't belong in the std distribution, though.  Even though the MINIX
file system shouldn't become as fragmented as the true UNIX file system,
the other performance gains would make MINIX feel quite peppy.

>>>21. POSIX Job Control (isn't this optional for POSIX?)
(Gag.  Barf.)  Use virtual terminals if you want to run several things
from one real terminal.

-- 
Guy Helmer                          helmer@sdnet.bitnet, uunet!dsuvax!ghelmer
Dakota State University Computing Services ------------------- (605) 256-5315
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