* [TUHS] Lions book @ 2020-01-17 14:31 Doug McIlroy 2020-01-17 14:50 ` Clem Cole 0 siblings, 1 reply; 8+ messages in thread From: Doug McIlroy @ 2020-01-17 14:31 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs I learned from Marianne Lions that she's still receiving royalties from John's book. What a testimonial to both John and the system! Doug ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] Lions book 2020-01-17 14:31 [TUHS] Lions book Doug McIlroy @ 2020-01-17 14:50 ` Clem Cole 2020-01-17 15:23 ` Larry McVoy 2020-01-17 15:24 ` John P. Linderman 0 siblings, 2 replies; 8+ messages in thread From: Clem Cole @ 2020-01-17 14:50 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Doug McIlroy; +Cc: tuhs [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 836 bytes --] Indeed!! FWIW I continue recommend it young hackers to read/examine/study before they try to open something like the current Linux kernel. The MIT xv6 work to put it on an Intel Architecture just adds to the value. As the recent thread/argument on the merits/demerits of the use/abuse of the preprocessor shows - simple and straightforward is easier to understand regardless of the arguments wrt how helpful the macros can be. 6th Edition is clear and if you want to understand what it takes and how it works, John's commentary it difficult to be. On Fri, Jan 17, 2020 at 9:32 AM Doug McIlroy <doug@cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote: > I learned from Marianne Lions that she's still receiving > royalties from John's book. What a testimonial to both > John and the system! > > Doug > -- Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1399 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] Lions book 2020-01-17 14:50 ` Clem Cole @ 2020-01-17 15:23 ` Larry McVoy 2020-01-17 16:00 ` Warner Losh 2020-01-17 17:21 ` Adam Thornton 2020-01-17 15:24 ` John P. Linderman 1 sibling, 2 replies; 8+ messages in thread From: Larry McVoy @ 2020-01-17 15:23 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Clem Cole; +Cc: tuhs, Doug McIlroy On Fri, Jan 17, 2020 at 09:50:24AM -0500, Clem Cole wrote: > 6th Edition is clear and if you want to understand what it takes and how it > works, John's commentary it difficult to beat. It's a good starting point but it's pretty outdated. I like to go on and on about how much I love the SunOS 4.x kernel but it is outdated as well. I wish there was a v6/SunOS like kernel that was as clean but had good support for SMP and NUMA and TCP offload (and probably a long list of other useful stuff I've forgotten). Teaching kids how a single threaded kernel works is cool but it's also misleading, the world has gotten a lot more complex. And while the kernels of decades ago were clean and simple, I don't know of a kernel to point people to that has the clean code that SunOS had. Solaris isn't it, though it has some bright spots. Linux is meh, it's better than nothing by a lot but I would not point to it as "read this, kid, you'll see the architecture". It's not clear there is a good answer. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] Lions book 2020-01-17 15:23 ` Larry McVoy @ 2020-01-17 16:00 ` Warner Losh 2020-01-17 16:15 ` Clem Cole 2020-01-17 17:21 ` Adam Thornton 1 sibling, 1 reply; 8+ messages in thread From: Warner Losh @ 2020-01-17 16:00 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Larry McVoy; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society, Doug McIlroy [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1653 bytes --] On Fri, Jan 17, 2020 at 8:24 AM Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote: > On Fri, Jan 17, 2020 at 09:50:24AM -0500, Clem Cole wrote: > > 6th Edition is clear and if you want to understand what it takes and how > it > > works, John's commentary it difficult to beat. > > It's a good starting point but it's pretty outdated. I like to go on and > on about how much I love the SunOS 4.x kernel but it is outdated as well. > > I wish there was a v6/SunOS like kernel that was as clean but had good > support for SMP and NUMA and TCP offload (and probably a long list of > other useful stuff I've forgotten). > > Teaching kids how a single threaded kernel works is cool but it's > also misleading, the world has gotten a lot more complex. And while > the kernels of decades ago were clean and simple, I don't know of > a kernel to point people to that has the clean code that SunOS had. > Solaris isn't it, though it has some bright spots. Linux is meh, it's > better than nothing by a lot but I would not point to it as "read this, > kid, you'll see the architecture". It's not clear there is a good > answer. > It's but the first step on the road to understanding. I'd been working on the FreeBSD kernel for years when I re-read the Lions book. The stark simplicity of the v6 kernel helped everything suddenly 'click' into place in the code I was reading in the FreeBSD kernel, even with 30ish years of changes to the v6 code base that lead to the FreeBSD kernel... Newer systems are a lot more complicated. And they need to be to get the full performance out of the system. Yet understanding the basics without the extra clutter has great value. Warner [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2156 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] Lions book 2020-01-17 16:00 ` Warner Losh @ 2020-01-17 16:15 ` Clem Cole 0 siblings, 0 replies; 8+ messages in thread From: Clem Cole @ 2020-01-17 16:15 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Warner Losh; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society, Doug McIlroy [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2875 bytes --] I completely agree. Studying and >>learning<< from V6 allows you to consider the basics of what any good OS, no just a UNIX-like system, has to do provide simple but complete services. Examining V6 not most of the things you find today removes a lot of the noise, like threading, parallel execution, vm, networking, which are fine topics for later, but Warner is right - get a solid understanding first. It also helps to understand what makes 'UNIX-ness' and why it was different from anything before it came on the scene. BTW: It' why I still like Pascal (Delphi) over C or C++ as a first language (I admit, I'm leaning towards Go these days, but Go lacks a good teaching text). This is what I heard Doug saying. IMO: Lion's book and the V6, can be considered 'old' by contemporary standards, but they are still 100% appropriate and because the book and code is so simple, the teacher and the student can focus on what really matters (*i.e.* learning to walk carefully in a directed manner and get to your destination before you are forced to run with the bulls and avoid getting run over). On Fri, Jan 17, 2020 at 11:01 AM Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com> wrote: > > > On Fri, Jan 17, 2020 at 8:24 AM Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote: > >> On Fri, Jan 17, 2020 at 09:50:24AM -0500, Clem Cole wrote: >> > 6th Edition is clear and if you want to understand what it takes and >> how it >> > works, John's commentary it difficult to beat. >> >> It's a good starting point but it's pretty outdated. I like to go on and >> on about how much I love the SunOS 4.x kernel but it is outdated as well. >> >> I wish there was a v6/SunOS like kernel that was as clean but had good >> support for SMP and NUMA and TCP offload (and probably a long list of >> other useful stuff I've forgotten). >> >> Teaching kids how a single threaded kernel works is cool but it's >> also misleading, the world has gotten a lot more complex. And while >> the kernels of decades ago were clean and simple, I don't know of >> a kernel to point people to that has the clean code that SunOS had. >> Solaris isn't it, though it has some bright spots. Linux is meh, it's >> better than nothing by a lot but I would not point to it as "read this, >> kid, you'll see the architecture". It's not clear there is a good >> answer. >> > > It's but the first step on the road to understanding. I'd been working on > the FreeBSD kernel for years when I re-read the Lions book. The stark > simplicity of the v6 kernel helped everything suddenly 'click' into place > in the code I was reading in the FreeBSD kernel, even with 30ish years of > changes to the v6 code base that lead to the FreeBSD kernel... > > Newer systems are a lot more complicated. And they need to be to get the > full performance out of the system. Yet understanding the basics without > the extra clutter has great value. > > Warner > [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 3929 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] Lions book 2020-01-17 15:23 ` Larry McVoy 2020-01-17 16:00 ` Warner Losh @ 2020-01-17 17:21 ` Adam Thornton 2020-01-18 3:35 ` G. Branden Robinson 1 sibling, 1 reply; 8+ messages in thread From: Adam Thornton @ 2020-01-17 17:21 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Larry McVoy, The Eunuchs Hysterical Society > On Jan 17, 2020, at 8:23 AM, Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote: > I don't know of > a kernel to point people to that has the clean code that SunOS had. It’s not exactly a kernel and it’s not exacly … well, anyway: selfie is pretty cool. http://selfie.cs.uni-salzburg.at/ Adam ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] Lions book 2020-01-17 17:21 ` Adam Thornton @ 2020-01-18 3:35 ` G. Branden Robinson 0 siblings, 0 replies; 8+ messages in thread From: G. Branden Robinson @ 2020-01-18 3:35 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 295 bytes --] At 2020-01-17T10:21:58-0700, Adam Thornton wrote: > It’s not exactly a kernel and it’s not exacly … well, anyway: > > selfie is pretty cool. > > http://selfie.cs.uni-salzburg.at/ Oh, heck yeah, it is. Every bullet point makes my heart go pitter-pat. :D Regards, Branden [-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --] [-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 833 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] Lions book 2020-01-17 14:50 ` Clem Cole 2020-01-17 15:23 ` Larry McVoy @ 2020-01-17 15:24 ` John P. Linderman 1 sibling, 0 replies; 8+ messages in thread From: John P. Linderman @ 2020-01-17 15:24 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Clem Cole; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society, Doug McIlroy [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1121 bytes --] I heard from her as well. So far, no immediate fire danger where she lives in Australia, but her garden (which may be Australian for lawn) is dying because of water restrictions. On Fri, Jan 17, 2020 at 9:52 AM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote: > Indeed!! > > > FWIW I continue recommend it young hackers to read/examine/study before > they try to open something like the current Linux kernel. The MIT xv6 work > to put it on an Intel Architecture just adds to the value. > > As the recent thread/argument on the merits/demerits of the use/abuse of > the preprocessor shows - simple and straightforward is easier to understand > regardless of the arguments wrt how helpful the macros can be. > > 6th Edition is clear and if you want to understand what it takes and how > it works, John's commentary it difficult to be. > > On Fri, Jan 17, 2020 at 9:32 AM Doug McIlroy <doug@cs.dartmouth.edu> > wrote: > >> I learned from Marianne Lions that she's still receiving >> royalties from John's book. What a testimonial to both >> John and the system! >> >> Doug >> > -- > Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual > [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1955 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2020-01-18 3:36 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 8+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2020-01-17 14:31 [TUHS] Lions book Doug McIlroy 2020-01-17 14:50 ` Clem Cole 2020-01-17 15:23 ` Larry McVoy 2020-01-17 16:00 ` Warner Losh 2020-01-17 16:15 ` Clem Cole 2020-01-17 17:21 ` Adam Thornton 2020-01-18 3:35 ` G. Branden Robinson 2020-01-17 15:24 ` John P. Linderman
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