** Reply to message from Petko Manolov <petkan@spct.net> on Fri, 09 Jun 2000
16:56:32 +0300
> Moving all drivers in user level is *bad* idea.
The PowerPC version of OS/2 (aka "WorkPlace OS") has drivers in user space.
That by itself isn't bad. The problem is that, like everything else in user
space, drivers have priorities and are scheduled. So for instance, under heavy
disk I/O, the mouse pointer would jump because the mouse driver couldn't get
enough CPU.
Part of the problem was that the IBM software architects (i.e. the people with
their heads in the clouds but never actually wrote any software) totally
overestimated the capabilities of the PowerPC chip. Today's PPC is a lot more
powerful, but back in 1994, it just didn't work like it was supposed to.
-- Timur Tabi - ttabi@interactivesi.com Interactive Silicon - http://www.interactivesi.com- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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