[openbeos] BeOS a microkernel?
- From: Timothy Covell <timothy.covell@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx,"Manuel Jesus Petit de Gabriel" <freston@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 23:14:55 -0600
On Sunday 20 January 2002 22:14, Manuel Jesus Petit de Gabriel wrote:
> > I know what he was saying.
> > Is it now necessary to see the source to be able to argue if or not a
> > design decision is the right one ? That's a new one to me.
>
> It's not necessary but helps a lot. Also most of those arguments against
> BONE were not very sound. The only good one was the unstabilities in
> the early versions... but it was usually accompained with rants about
> how BONE was breaking the microkernel design of BeOS... and those
> ranting about really did not know what they were talking about, since
> BeOS is not a microkernel.
>
>
> manuel,
>
> > Mark
Perhaps you could explain why the preBONE kernel was not
a microkernel? Certainly it is much closer to the microkernel
side than the monolithic side. AFAIK, the kernel in R5 contains:
o Memory Manager
o Messaging Infrastructure
o CPU recogintion but not MTRR
o VFS
o Entry points/glue for drivers and add-ons
Also, by using the "bus manager" concept, it is certainly even
more slim that it would be otherwise.
That much said, I really like Kurt Skauen's reply about AtheOS:
Q: What kind of architecture is the kernel built on? Monolitic, micro-kernel,
nano-kernel?
A: I often ask myself that question to :) The kernel is very modular and the
it have a well defined interface between the kernel and it's device-drivers
and file-systems. So given that each component communicate through a thin
well defined interface, and don't know much else about each other, it
ressembles a micro-kernel. I am not sure if this is the right term though,
since all kernel-components lives in kernel-space and is not protected from
each other, this is all properties from a monolitic-kernel. I am a bit
confused :)
--
timothy.covell@xxxxxxxxxxxx
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