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From: lm@snafu.Sun.COM (Larry McVoy)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: syscall(2) function (really: syscall(3))
Keywords: Whatever happened to The American Dream?
Message-ID: <92792@sun.uucp>
Date: 7 Mar 89 16:54:31 GMT
References: <3740@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> <8984@alice.UUCP> <9757@smoke.BRL.MIL> <1449@ubu.warwick.UUCP>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Reply-To: lm@sun.UUCP (Larry McVoy)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 19

In article <1449@ubu.warwick.UUCP> mirk@uk.ac.warwick.cs (Mike Taylor) writes:
>It's kinda sad to see how the minimal set of low-level routines in
>primitive UNICES has mushroomed to the incredible 178 distinct system
>calls that our current UNIX (SunOS 4.3, in fact) seems to find
>necessary.

Umm, this is a bit naive.  Granted, I'm working at Sun at the moment, but 
those of you who remember my screaming and yelling about the size of the
SunOS kernel will realize that I tend to speak my mind without letting
any corporation's feelings get in the way.  Anyway, counting system calls
is bogus, completely bogus.  You need to count syscalls & ioctls.  ioctls()
bop right down into the kernel too, you know.  AT&T adds ioctls like 
there is no tomorrow.

I'm not saying that the kernel isn't too big, in fact I agree completely 
if that is the poster's point.  I am saying that it is naive to simply 
count system calls.  It's a lot more than 178; Unix is corporate software.

Larry McVoy, Lachman Associates.			...!sun!lm or lm@sun.com