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From: mwm@eris.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.unix.wizards,comp.os.misc
Subject: Re: Free Software Foundation (was: Re: Mach, the new standard?)
Message-ID: <4950@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Wed, 31-Dec-69 18:59:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: jade.4950
Posted: Wed Dec 31 18:59:59 1969
Date-Received: Wed, 2-Sep-87 06:53:53 EDT
References: <1665@ncr-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM> <8381@utzoo.UUCP> <797@Pescadero.ARPA> <83@splut.UUCP> <738@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM> <6365@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Sender: usenet@jade.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (My watch has windows) Meyer)
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Xref: utgpu comp.arch:1916 comp.unix.wizards:3722 comp.os.misc:118

In article <6365@brl-smoke.ARPA> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>) writes:
<In article <738@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM> kempf@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM (Jim Kempf) writes:
<>I, too, would like to see FSF's software on the PC/AT and PC/XT, but
<>I think its unreasonable to expect FSF to do it. 
<
<The hard part is the OS kernel, and for that you can use MINIX
<(subscribe to comp.os.minix).  User-mode utilities should not be
<too hard to port to MINIX.

Minix is v7 - (things you didn't know about, and don't want even if
you did), the GNU kernel should be 4.3BSD + (things) - (security
features).

So for starters, you can expect the same set of things to break as you
do when doing ports across Unix families: doing anything nontrivial
with ttys, shared memory, networking, file name lengths, etc. 

To make things worse, the GNU utilities are mostly being written from
scratch assuming they'll have 4BSD and a large machine underneath
them. So expect daemons/utilities to want to talk to syslogd. Expect
programs that will try to create file names longer than 14 characters.
Expect programs that assume that memory is cheap.

"Not to hard" being a relative term (i.e. - iron is "not to hard"
compared to diamond, but not when compared to mud :-), I can't say
that Gwyn was wrong. I just want to dispell any thoughts that this
would be an easy project to tackle.

Better to run raw Minix, and port the things you want. If you get the
editor to work, let me know :-).

	<mike

--
Here's a song about absolutely nothing.			Mike Meyer
It's not about me, not about anyone else,		mwm@berkeley.edu
Not about love, not about being young.			ucbvax!mwm
Not about anything else, either.			mwm@ucbjade.BITNET