On 1 Jun 2001, Johan Danielsson wrote:
> Lord Isildur <mrfusion@umbar.vaxpower.org> writes:

> > they might sound monotonous after a while, but it is exactly the
> > same for someone of the opposite point of view to say 'im pretty
> > sick of these continual additions (or proposed additions) of fluff
> > into the kernel' and it would be exactly the same assertion.
>
> You don't seem to understand what I'm talking about.
>
> If there's a technical argument against something, we should hear
> about it. That something isn't *useful* on someones ten year old pc
> that they got for free, gets very tedious to hear about all the time.

Bahhhh... You're seeing the world through PeeCee tinted eyes.  You must
remember that one of NetBSD's major focal points is its portability.  And
given this, that means it runs on quite a few more systems than just Intel
PCs with lots-o-memory -- or the 8Meg PC freebies you're taking jabs at
here.  Most of the older machines which are supported tend to have very
modest amounts of both memory and CPU cycles.  This includes systems such
as the MicroVAX-II on which a memory config of 8Megs or less is fairly
common.  I myself have a number of VAX systems with as little as 4-6Megs.

> Why should we have anything in the kernel at all? Micro-kernels have
> proved to be pretty useless in reality, so why not strive in that
> direction?

I don't know... Linux has sort of strived in the opposite direction.
Do you really want the NetBSD kernel to become what the Linux kernel has
evolved into?

I've no problems with these sorts of additions to the kernel as long as
they're made optional through the kernel configuration file.  But, it is
actually important to keep in mind that NetBSD isn't just an OS for modern
desktop systems and servers.  It also supports a wide variety of older
systems as well as more conservatively equipped contemporary embedded
system platforms.

-brian.