Xref: utzoo comp.unix.wizards:6244 comp.arch:3226
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ncr-sd!greg
From: greg@ncr-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Greg Noel)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards,comp.arch
Subject: Re: Jerry Pournelle on UNIX (From BYTE)
Message-ID: <2007@ncr-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM>
Date: 26 Jan 88 06:39:19 GMT
References: <1999@ncr-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM> <5696@eecae.UUCP>
Reply-To: greg@ncr-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Greg Noel)
Organization: NCR Corporation, Rancho Bernardo
Lines: 52

I normally don't respond to articles like this, but this one exceeded my
threshhold of irritation about people who post without bothering to find
out the background or thinking about what is being discussed.

>in article <1999@ncr-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM>, greg@ncr-sd.UUCP [sic] says:
>> Um, the read-only file system being discussed is over 500 megabytes

That's me, responding to a thread that described current technology that
copied a read-only file system into RAM so that it could be manipulated.
I was refering to another thread, where the possibilities of using a
CD-ROM as an integral component of a future desktop-sized computer were
being discussed.

In article <5696@eecae.UUCP> lawitzke@eecae.UUCP (John Lawitzke) writes:
>That's strange, the root partition on my VAX8600 takes only ~5.25MB of
>disk space. I'd like to see a UNIX system in which the root partition is
>500MB. That would make the /usr partition on the order of 2.5gigabytes.
>I shudder to think about the size of the user area.........

\I/ didn't say anything about it being a root partition -- where did you
get that idea?  I was talking about providing \all/ of Unix on a "file
system" (in the abstract sense; that is, a place where files are kept --
obviously, it should look like a Unix file system to a user program, but
that doesn't mean it has to be a \Unix/ file system), so that it would
include not only all of what is normally found on the root, but also the
programs, utilities, games, demos, and whatever.  Even that wouldn't fill
500Mb of a CD-ROM, so there's room left for lots more.

>If you knew anything about UNIX internals, ... [remainder of ad hominum
>	comments deleted] ...

Sigh.  In the first place, none of what you said had any relevance to using
memory as an organized special-purpose cache, specifically containing the
directory tree, as opposed to a generalized buffer cache that \happens/ to
contain pieces of the directory tree.  We're talking about how to optimize
access to a unit with a half-second seek time and a slow transfer rate.
Permenently allocating a piece of memory so that only one seek is required
to access a file seems like a reasonable idea.

And in the second place, sirrah, I have been hacking Unix kernels for over
fifteen years.  My credentials in this area include the infamous "Greg Noel
Hack," well known to anyone who has been in the field for a while.  Snotty
remarks and gratuitous insults are not the way to win friends and influence
people.

>On another note, how about dropping this topic? I think we've kicked a 
>dead horse quite enough.

You should have taken your own advice.  If you don't find our speculations
about the future intriguing, as I do, you are welcome to ignore them.
-- 
-- Greg Noel, NCR Rancho Bernardo   Greg.Noel@SanDiego.NCR.COM  or  greg@ncr-sd