Re: The Nature Of Operating Systems :-) (Was: Re: Linux Beer Hike)

[Will Newton <nospam [at] misconception.org.uk>]

"Alex Hudson" <eah106 [at] york.ac.uk> tapped some keys and produced:

> Well, memory management, processes, threads, preemptive multitasking, 
> dynamic link library support, power mangement, privilege levels, device 
> drivers, event handling, TCP/IP stack, portable across multiple 
> architectures, I could go on.... at which point does this not sound like 
> an
> OS??

EPOC has privilege levels? I don't know much about it's internals, but I
would be suprised. Anyway I said not a "proper" OS. Interpret how you will.

> I think you're underestimating the size of EPOC and overestimating the 
> size of Linux!! Remember, EPOC32 comes in at around 6Mb w/applications? 
> I can still fit a distro on a floppy. Compressed, yes, but then, better 
> than a 4:1 compression would be rather something.. I can get a graphical 
> distro on two
> floppies.

1722 * 2 = 3444kb.
2:1 compression.
Exercise for the reader.

> > My current kernel (2.3.99pre3, everything modular) is 580k, 
> > compressed. There's stuff I wouldn't want in a PDA on there, but where 
> > possible everything is modular (i.e. I have ext2, IDE and friends 
> > built in).
> 
> I'm sure IDE will be a big momma, but also, your kernel is compiled for 
> speed, not size. And there is *plenty* of stuff that can come out of it.

You're making assumptions as to how EPOC is compiled then. Let's put it
this way, Linux has yet to convince me it scales down to such a low mem/disk
machine.
 
> Yep, but not a great deal though. Possibly would need some FPU 
> emulation, depending on the architecture. The CISC->RISC instruction 
> growth wouldn't be
> vast, I shouldn't expect.

I'll believe it when I see it (Any Linux handhelds actually in production?).

-- 
H 3@H 3@

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