Xref: utzoo comp.unix.sysv286:160 comp.unix.sysv386:8333 comp.unix.xenix.misc:211 comp.unix.xenix.sco:2581 comp.unix.wizards:25732 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!wuarchive!emory!gatech!prism!dali.cc.gatech.edu!ken From: ken@dali.cc.gatech.edu (Ken Seefried iii) Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv286,comp.unix.sysv386,comp.unix.xenix.misc,comp.unix.xenix.sco,comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: Kernel Definition Message-ID: <29696@hydra.gatech.EDU> Date: 23 May 91 15:48:42 GMT References: <1423@necis.UUCP> Sender: news@prism.gatech.EDU Followup-To: comp.unix.sysv286 Organization: The House Of Fun Lines: 21 In article <1423@necis.UUCP> jjp@necis.UUCP (Jeff Phillips) writes: >A friend of mine is writing a paper on balanced system approach. In it he >makes the assertion that "...(the UNIX operating system is) too large to fit >in system RAM all at once, therefore pieces of the operating system are swapped >between system RAM and disk, thereby generating even more disk I/O requests." Your friend has absolutely no idea what he's talking about. In any traditional Unix system (V6, V7, Sys[35], BSD), the kernel is never swapped. If you don't have enough physical memory to hold the kernel, you can't boot. Seems to me maybe he should have actually done some research before writing this "paper". Good places to start would be Bach's "Design of the Unix Operating System", Leffler, et.al. "The Design and Implimentation of the Unix Operating System" and Quarterman, et.al., "4.2BSD and 4.3BSD as Examples of the Unix Operating System" in ACM Computing Surveys, December, 1985. -- ken seefried iii "I'll have what the gentleman ken@dali.cc.gatech.edu on the floor is having..."