Re: [MiNT] New kernel features

[kellis <kellis@leading.net>]

On Sun, 5 Dec 1999, Guido Flohr wrote:

> If there is one thing I have learned from all that, it's this:  I think it
> is about time to really split up the kernel development into two different
> branches.  One, with minimal functionality, no features other than those
> that are strictly required to do multitasking and one which is oriented
> towards new developments in other operating systems.
> 
> As a matter of fact there are people that are very happy that MiNT offers
> a close-to-unix environment on machines that were manufactured years ago.
> They accept that hardware developpers mostly abandon them completely but
> they seemingly don't expect that software developpers come to a point
> someday where they say that it's getting ridiculous to support such
> machines.
> 

Good Morning Guido, 

All you say is correct and I couldn't agree more.

MiNT up until now is STABLE.
Now this is a very important word for an OS.
It is usable, as been tested by many users, no major complaints, runs
commercial applications correctly (or at least well enough) and if some
extreme case, TOS is still there in emergency. (can't say that that easily
with windows or linux when working with older application/libraries.).

So here, atari users have a big advantage.

As long as 1.15.x is available for the users,anyone should be able to do
whatever they feel (for the better of course) to the kernel.
We talk about it (coz sometimes have better ideas/implementation and see
the feedback for each proposal) and that's it.
If a feature requires more memory than expected, well, is this feature
absolutely vital for the old hardware users to have it?
MiNT 1.15.x works fine and is quite something already.

As of today I don't have a FPU for example. If future version of MiNT will
require an FPU for a fonction I really want, I will buy an FPU.
If not, I'll just stick with previous kernel.

I see:

Commercial applications for TOS should be able to run under MiNT. (with
Milan (eventhough shipped with magic) coming out with new hardware for
example) it is quite important to not isolate ourselves.
If they don't work, try to sync with the authors.

Closer to unix OS for enhancement of what we have, and not just for the
sake of being unix. (like having mounting filesystem the unix way is not
improving what we already have imo, unless someone proves us wrong in the
real life and not just theorically), coz of course I do understand that
mounting in unix is very important (for the downtime, fixing hardware
failures etc and still maintaining the uptime), but is it really the case
for us? Is that really worth it?

A poll would be nice to do. 

Who are the mint everyday users?
What kind of hardware?
What kind of setup do they have?
What commercial application do they need daily?
etc.

This would probably clears some things up.

Thanks for reading.