Mach support in the standard kernel?

Ketil Z Malde (ketil@ii.uib.no)
22 May 1996 16:58:59 +0200


Matthew Kramer <kram1968@nova.gmi.edu> writes:

> On Mon, 20 May 1996, Povl H. Pedersen wrote:

>> Why shouldn't it end up in the source tree ?

I assume you mean support for Mach, and not Mach itself? I agree, ther=
e
should IMHO be a Mach =ABarchitecture=BB, meaning Linux is compiled=
as a
single-server for Mach. IIRC, mkLinux is programmed very cleanly fro=
m
the Linux sources, with everything #ifdef'ed out.

>> It has nothing to do with bloating the kernel. Au contraire. A Mac=
h
>> port removes stuff from the kernel (and puts it in microkernel).

> Yes, it moves a lot of the base functionality to the microkernel=
,
> which when added to all the other BS in the microkernel, you'r=
e
> looking at a system that won't run in under 4-6 megs of RAM probably.

True, =ABmicro=BBkernels the size of Mach aren't free. But we're talki=
ng
about runnable size -- people who have limited hardware can and will us=
e
native linux. For real time tasks, OS development/debugging, etc etc,
Mach will add features that Linux by itself cannot necessarily provide.
Let's try to embrace these users as well, no?

> Actually I seem to remember Apple saying it would require 8, but =
I
> can't recall for sure. So much for the 2 meg days.

Yep - Mach by itself uses 2Mb, IIRC. On the FSF conference, they had a
Mac with 40Mb, I think, running MkLinux. :-)

As for kernel source sizes -- well, I don't worry much about that after
the kernel got too big to fit on a 1.44 floppy anyway :-)

~kzm