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From: tim@hoptoad.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.m68k,comp.sys.misc
Subject: Re: What is an OS?
Message-ID: <1720@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: Tue, 3-Feb-87 14:01:05 EST
Article-I.D.: hoptoad.1720
Posted: Tue Feb  3 14:01:05 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 5-Feb-87 02:43:42 EST
References: <8520@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> <1270@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP>
Reply-To: tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney)
Organization: Centram Systems, Berkeley
Lines: 28
Xref: watmath comp.sys.amiga:1892 comp.sys.mac:1133 comp.sys.m68k:229 comp.sys.misc:294

When faced with a non-computer-type who wants to know what I meant when I
let the words "operating system" slip out, I say that it's the main program
that's always running and that controls how all the other programs run.
This seems to satisfy them, and as far as I can tell it seems to be
accurate, though non-jargonistic.

For a computer type, I would probably say that it is software which helps
other (client) software deal with the files, processes, and devices of the
computer system.  This would mean that standard software libraries and
standard applications which are not in the kernel should be considered part
of the OS, but I don't have any problem with that.

By the way, I think user-space file servers are undesirable because there is
likely to be context switching overhead in the processing of remote file
requests.  This creates scheduling latency in a non-real-time system - that
is, the process scheduler has to be invoked before any packet can be fully
processed - and this tends to slow down protocols enormously.  File servers
should be put in the kernel where possible, like all other network
protocols.  It is regrettable that UNIX requires a static linking and
rebooting to do so; perhaps someday someone will come up with a
dynamic-linking version of UNIX to help with protocol (and driver, and file
system, etc.) development and maintenance.
-- 
Tim Maroney, Electronic Village Idiot
{ihnp4,sun,well,ptsfa,lll-crg,frog}!hoptoad!tim (uucp)
hoptoad!tim@lll-crg (arpa)

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