Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!dg!rec
From: rec@dg.dg.com (Robert Cousins)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: What kind of things would you wnat in the GNU OS
Message-ID: <186@dg.dg.com>
Date: 5 Jun 89 14:39:19 GMT
References: <19793@adm.BRL.MIL>
Reply-To: uunet!dg!rec (Robert Cousins)
Organization: Data General, Westboro, MA.
Lines: 40

IMHO, the features of such an operating system should be (in approximately
this priority):

	0.	Semantic compatibility with Unix
	1.	Portability
	1.5	Multiprocessor support
	2.	Functionality
	3.	Extensability
	4.	Innovative
While I am sure that many people will disagree with the above priority
list, relatively few will disagree with the contents (save to add some
important ones I can't think of right now).  The real issues will be 
choosing the reference hardware and establishing some form of ABI/BCS
for the hardware.

It is important to note that there is a tremendous amount of room left for
inovation while maintaining compatibility with Unix.  One of the common
complaints is that there is no user level facility for asynchronous I/O,
yet there is an easy way to provide a form of it -- remove the buffer
from the user's address space and cause a page fault on the next reference
to the page(s).  The faulted program is then suspended until the completion
of the I/O request (which may be immediate if the I/O request has completed).
This allows the user task to return from the I/O call immediately yet have 
the Unix semantics remain the same.	

Other examples of potential innovation include an improved interface
between  X windows and the operating system, improved file systems (which
take advantage of implicit parallelism in file operations), better networking
support (it seems that EVERYONE (except for one or two) runs the BSD
networking code with only minor hacking), making the kernel REENTRANT
would also help.  Lastly, creating a new algorithm to replace linear
searches might just help a lot.

Just my $.02 worth.

Robert Cousins
Dept. Mgr, Workstation Dev't.
Data General Corp.

Speaking for myself alone.