[TUHS] new paper comparing Unix kernel designs

[TUHS] new paper comparing Unix kernel designs

[Nelson H. F. Beebe]

A new paper comparing Unix kernel designs was published earlier today:

	Stergios Papadimitriou and Lefteris Moussiades
	Mac OS versus FreeBSD: A Comparative Evaluation
	[IEEE] Computer 52(2), 44--53, February 2018
	https://doi.org/10.1109/MC.2018.1451648

Despite the title, GNU/Linux also is included in the comparisons.  The
abstract is:

>> ...
>> FreeBSD (an open source Unix-like OS) and Apple's Mac OS use similar
>> BSD functionality but take different approaches. FreeBSD implements a
>> traditional compact monolithic Unix kernel, whereas Mac OS builds the
>> BSD Unix functionality on top of the Mach microkernel. The authors
>> provide an in-depth technical investigation of both approaches.
>> ...

Our fellow list member Larry McVoy, and his lmbench suite, are
mentioned in the article, along with results of that suite.

There are about 200 numbers in the two large tables of performance
measurements, and while many are comparable across operating systems,
there are some benchmarks that show up to a 40x difference between
systems on the same hardware.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Nelson H. F. Beebe                    Tel: +1 801 581 5254                  -
- University of Utah                    FAX: +1 801 581 4148                  -
- Department of Mathematics, 110 LCB    Internet e-mail: beebe at math.utah.edu  -
- 155 S 1400 E RM 233                       beebe at acm.org  beebe at computer.org -
- Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090, USA    URL: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/ -
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[TUHS] new paper comparing Unix kernel designs

[Dave Horsfall]

On Thu, 1 Mar 2018, Nelson H. F. Beebe wrote:

> A new paper comparing Unix kernel designs was published earlier today:
>
> 	Stergios Papadimitriou and Lefteris Moussiades
> 	Mac OS versus FreeBSD: A Comparative Evaluation
> 	[IEEE] Computer 52(2), 44--53, February 2018
> 	https://doi.org/10.1109/MC.2018.1451648

And US$33.00 for non-IEEE members; I'll pass...

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."

[TUHS] new paper comparing Unix kernel designs

[Nelson H. F. Beebe]

>> And US$33.00 for non-IEEE members; 

Yes, that can be a problem for journal publications.

However, throughout the developed world, many academic, city, county,
and regional libraries offer their clients Interlibrary Loan service
that might be zero cost to you.  I use that service many times a year,
and I even once got a loaned hardcopy book that came to Utah from a
library in Scotland (and was later safely returned to Scotland).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Nelson H. F. Beebe                    Tel: +1 801 581 5254                  -
- University of Utah                    FAX: +1 801 581 4148                  -
- Department of Mathematics, 110 LCB    Internet e-mail: beebe at math.utah.edu  -
- 155 S 1400 E RM 233                       beebe at acm.org  beebe at computer.org -
- Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090, USA    URL: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/ -
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[TUHS] new paper comparing Unix kernel designs

[Clem Cole]

Unix history. Btw.  One of the things I'm proud of as president at the time
- Usenix was the first of the academic orgs to remove it's pay wall and go
100% free access.

On Thu, Mar 1, 2018 at 7:11 PM Nelson H. F. Beebe <beebe at math.utah.edu>
wrote:

> >> And US$33.00 for non-IEEE members;
>
> Yes, that can be a problem for journal publications.
>
> However, throughout the developed world, many academic, city, county,
> and regional libraries offer their clients Interlibrary Loan service
> that might be zero cost to you.  I use that service many times a year,
> and I even once got a loaned hardcopy book that came to Utah from a
> library in Scotland (and was later safely returned to Scotland).
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> - Nelson H. F. Beebe                    Tel: +1 801 581 5254
>     -
> - University of Utah                    FAX: +1 801 581 4148
>     -
> - Department of Mathematics, 110 LCB    Internet e-mail:
> beebe at math.utah.edu  -
> - 155 S 1400 E RM
> <https://maps.google.com/?q=%0A-+155+S+1400+E+RM+&entry=gmail&source=g>233
>                      beebe at acm.org  beebe at computer.org -
> - Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090, USA    URL:
> http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/ -
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
-- 
Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual
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[TUHS] new paper comparing Unix kernel designs

[Dave Horsfall]

On Thu, 1 Mar 2018, Nelson H. F. Beebe wrote:

>>> And US$33.00 for non-IEEE members;
>
> Yes, that can be a problem for journal publications.
>
> However, throughout the developed world, many academic, city, county,
> and regional libraries offer their clients Interlibrary Loan service
> that might be zero cost to you.  I use that service many times a year,
> and I even once got a loaned hardcopy book that came to Utah from a
> library in Scotland (and was later safely returned to Scotland).

Yeah, Australia is developed (although sometimes I wonder), so I'll
check out my library; should be free 'cuz I'm a member of it.

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."

[TUHS] new paper comparing Unix kernel designs

[Larry McVoy]

On Fri, Mar 02, 2018 at 10:44:22AM +1100, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> On Thu, 1 Mar 2018, Nelson H. F. Beebe wrote:
> 
> >A new paper comparing Unix kernel designs was published earlier today:
> >
> >	Stergios Papadimitriou and Lefteris Moussiades
> >	Mac OS versus FreeBSD: A Comparative Evaluation
> >	[IEEE] Computer 52(2), 44--53, February 2018
> >	https://doi.org/10.1109/MC.2018.1451648
> 
> And US$33.00 for non-IEEE members; I'll pass...

I really hate that they do that, it restricts the information flow.
I always stuck up pdfs of my papers so people could grab them.

[TUHS] new paper comparing Unix kernel designs

[Donald ODona]

macos uses a (far flung mach derived) osf kernel, which is a hybrid and not a microkernel. Additionally macos utilize other bsd kernel functionality.

At 1 Mar 2018 23:29:36 +0000 (+00:00) from "Nelson H. F. Beebe" <beebe at math.utah.edu>:
> A new paper comparing Unix kernel designs was published earlier today:
> >> ... FreeBSD implements a
> >> traditional compact monolithic Unix kernel, whereas Mac OS builds the
> >> BSD Unix functionality on top of the Mach microkernel. The authors
> >> provide an in-depth technical investigation of both approaches.