At 11:00 AM 1/23/01 -0500, Brian Hechinger wrote:
>i just hope thie new list can help make some inroads to the performance
>problem.  too much of the PC minset is being adopted (well, CPUs and RAM are
>so fast/cheap, who cares) when on the other hand NetBSD is trying to maintain
>this "runs on anyt platform" ideology, but the two DO NOT MIX.

Its a start, and remember that the counter statement to this is, "_runs_ on 
any platform does not require that it _build_ on any platform." The Linux 
folk claim to run on the Motorola Coldfire but they don't build there.

What I (and I believe others as well) object to is it not building on a 
machine that in its day would support 30 - 40 interactive users and ran the 
_original_ VAX BSD.

Also let me caution against too much negativity, performance goals are just 
that, a goal that has to be reached. It is like getting the system to 
compile without errors. Bloat can be cured by #ifdef :-)

> > I have taken to compiling big things on my VS3100/M76 box at 7 VUPS as
> > opposed to my MVII at 1 VUP.  That helps some.  I would really hate to
> > have to stoop to a PeeCee to do that, although I have this 7000 class
> > Alpha biggiemachine sitting out in the shed.....(:+}}...
>
>a few of us are lucky enough to own this cool old iron.  to make it useless?
>i'd rather run VMS.

This is fortunately an alternative, a full featured OS with decent 
performance. But again, the sky is not falling, it is clearing up. NetBSD 
1.5 is a _huge_ advance on the VAX, it runs on lots and lots of systems. 
Getting it to run faster is an analysis game with well known rules.

--Chuck