Newsgroups: comp.os.mach
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!gamiddle
From: gamiddle@watmath.waterloo.edu (Guy Middleton)
Subject: Re: Bytes in Mach 3.0?
Message-ID: <1991Feb15.214231.21348@watmath.waterloo.edu>
Organization: Math Faculty Secret Police
References: <2981@fai.UUCP> <CHAMPLIN.91Feb12131759@virgil.pa.dec.com> <1991Feb13.170901@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com> <1991Feb14.220240.26795@ico.isc.com> <62753@bbn.BBN.COM>
Date: Fri, 15 Feb 1991 21:42:31 GMT
Lines: 21

In article <62753@bbn.BBN.COM> fkittred@spca.bbn.com (Fletcher Kittredge) writes:
> In article <1991Feb14.220240.26795@ico.isc.com> rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) writes:
> >My confusion stems from the understanding that the Mach 3.0 kernel
> >is supposed to be the "micro-kernel" version, and the belief that a 240 Kb
> >kernel cannot reasonably be labeled "micro".
> >
> >Explanation/clarification, please?
> 
> Sure, how familar are you with modern operating systems?  245K of text
> with 31k of data is *VERY* small for a UNIXoid kernel.  For example,
> here is the size of the Unix kernel on Sun, DEC and HP systems:
> 
[various huge numbers deleted]

I don't think it is all that small.  4.3bsd on a VAX has text of similar size:

text	data	bss	dec	hex
229784	166320	90048	486152	76b08

Note that it is probably more fair to compare 386 with VAX binaries than with
SPARC, MIPS or HP-PA, since RISC code tends to occupy more space.
