Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!unmvax!gatech!rutgers!cbmvax!daveh From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: UNIX vs. Amiga speeds Message-ID: <6352@cbmvax.UUCP> Date: 21 Mar 89 07:34:57 GMT References: Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA Lines: 57 in article , deven@pawl.rpi.edu (Deven Corzine) says: > In-reply-to: schow@bnr-public.uucp's message of 19 Mar 89 10:26:57 GMT > > In article <353@bnr-fos.UUCP> schow@bnr-public.uucp (Stanley Chow) writes: >>I am very happy with Amiga. Why should I trade in a fast Amiga >>for a slow Unix? > > Unix is an operating system. The Amiga is a computer. The Amiga can > run Unix. (The 2500UX already does.) Your assumption that Unix is > inherently slow is patently absurd. Untrue. The Amiga Exec is just plain more efficient than the AT&T UNIX Kernel. Task swaps under exec are extremely light weight when compared to UNIX swaps. FFS runs around 3x the speed of the standard System V file system, on the same A2500 hardware, without swapping in the way (at least that was the last rough figure -- don't know if Steve's latest have recently been compared with Mike/Johann's latest, but I wouldn't expect too much change). Despite what the UNIX-or-death folks say, UNIX isn't perfect. It does lots of things right. Some things OK. Let's not even talk about added device drivers... > The Amiga can't even do that. It doesn't have an MMU. To quote the well known UNIX wizard Deven Thomas Corzine, "The 2500UX already does." So do all other 2500s. > If you ran Unix on the Amiga without paging (which isn't possible) or > swapping (which is quite possible, but only really feasible with a HD) > you will get similar speeds to programs running on the Amiga under > AmigaDOS. You CAN'T run UNIX without paging, that's part of the task swap overhead in UNIX, and one of the reasons it goes slower (and, of course, this slowdown also makes fork() possible, so it's not a clear loss. But what is?). I'm not at all claiming that it goes considerably slower, just slower. Also, once you start swapping, obviously, you will go slower. It doesn't take that many programs running to start swapping. Care to guess how may programs I have running on my Amiga system here (if you guessed 35, you'd win the cupie doll). I'm using less than 1.7 megabytes of RAM. Shared libraries sure make a difference. >> Consider the problems of expanding wildcard in the shell: >> - increditably long lines are passed around. > So? Either the shell builds an incredibly long line and pulls the > parameters from it to pass to the program, or you pass the program the > command line directly (as the CLI does) and the program builds the > same incredibly long line. Big lot of difference it makes. I thought you said you understood pipes? It makes a big difference. > Deven -- Dave Haynie "The 32 Bit Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy Amiga -- It's not just a job, it's an obsession