Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!jade!eris!mwm
From: mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (My watch has windows) Meyer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Amiga: Which replacment OS?/UN*X ??
Message-ID: <3979@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Wed, 17-Jun-87 02:22:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: jade.3979
Posted: Wed Jun 17 02:22:44 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 21-Jun-87 09:09:55 EDT
References: <600@gryphon.CTS.COM> <1705@vdsvax.steinmetz.UUCP> <1576@stb.UUCP> <165@sugar.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@jade.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (My watch has windows) Meyer)
Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica
Lines: 96

In article <165@sugar.UUCP> peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter DaSilva) writes:
<> Un$x is an absolute PAIN to use floppies with. EVERY TIME you switch them,
<> you have TWO commands to give.
<
<Part of the solution to this is a write-through cache. The other... well with
<3.25" disks you can mount them transparently. That is basically what the
<Amiga does, you know?

Ok, I can see a disk change causing the kernel parts of mount and
unmount to hapen. You could even flush /etc/mtab, and make everything
that uses it wade around in the kernel to get that data. I think
changes to /etc/fstab can be ignored, but programs that use it are
going to be much less usefull. The result won't be pretty, in any
case. But there are lots of other things that could be done to Unix
with less effort to make it work better on an Amiga.

<> Programs do not have sufficient control over serial ports. I have yet to see
<> a terminal program for un*x that even matches, not beats but matches, the
<> terminal programs for a trs-80 model 1.
<
<I have yet to see a terminal program for UNIX, period. Terminal emulation is
<a matter for the terminal you're on. There are plenty of *modem* programs for
<UNIX, however. Some are quite good.

You haven't been looking hard enough. There's at least one ANSI
emulator that runs through termcap. X comes with vt00 and TEK
emulators, and there's a PD vt100 emulator for Suntools. NeWS claims
to emulate bitgraph, vt100, h19, and tvi925 termminals (at least).

And the original point still stands. For some reason, Unix modem
programs don't get very good throughput. Nuts - Unix terminals don't
get very good throughput. My CP/M-68K system came closer to pushing
9600 baud out it's serial port than Unix does.

<> Want to write any extensions (such as network support over a serial port)?
<> Good luck making it work, let alone making it transparent.
<
<You can make it semi-transparent (translucent) with either sockets or named
<pipes. I think AmigaDOS has a number of advantages over UNIX here. I
<particularly like the Amigados file naming conventions, which can be
<slightly modified to become a transparent superset of UNIX's.

SLIP is in BSD 4.3, and can be gotten from seismo.css.gov for free.
Any program that expects to speak IP over ethernets won't have any
problems talking over serial lines with this code. I can't think of
any way to make it transparent, other than to try making it go at the
10Mbit speeds you find on ethernets.

<Have you ever used a UNIX machine single user? So long as you don't put gross
<stuff into crontab you swap infrequently or not at all... but the ability is
<still there. You're sounding like the ATARI-ST people claiming that
<multitasking is a problem because of what happens if you misuse it.

I use single-user Unix systems all the time, with little or nothing in
crontab. They swap quite a bit, too (something about *large* window
managers and tools).

The multitasking analogy isn't quite right. Multitasking gives you
some basic abilities you didn't have before. Swapping just means you
get to run more and bigger applications before you run out of memory.
Of course, the typical Unix swapping strategy crocked for a small
system (two floppies). Or a large (Cray) one, for that matter.

<I want as much resource tracking as you can afford. I have used UNIX systems
<with considerably less hardware than an Amiga and they ran quite well, so
<obviously the 68000 can afford as much. I can do with more bounds checking.
<
<I program in C.

You program in C and want bounds checking? Make up your mind :-).

Have you ever run real Unix (not the AT&T mini-Unix for the PDP-11/10
& kin) without either an MMU, or segment registers? If so, I'd like to
know what it was on.

<****
<
<Now then. I don't think you need UNIX on the Amiga for a simple reason:
<AmigaDOS is already so good. It's not perfect, and there is a lot of stuff
<I would like to change, but it's good enough that it's not worth the effort
<of replacing it completely. On the other hand, there's no need to slam UNIX,
<which isn't an O/S so much as a family of operating systems with a common
<programmer and user interface: some of which are not appropriate for a machine
<of the Amiga's capacity, and some of which are.

Very well put. The only really major problem (as in - this is the one
that really hurts and can't be replaced by something that runs faster
but does the same job) is resource tracking so I can kill runaway
procs.

	<mike
--
How many times do you have to fall			Mike Meyer
While people stand there gawking?			mwm@berkeley.edu
How many times do you have to fall			ucbvax!mwm
Before you end up walking?				mwm@ucbjade.BITNET