*nix on "classic" systems

[Dave McGuire]

On Apr 10, 2007, at 11:03 AM, Angel Martin Alganza wrote:
>> It seems that you could take a fork of NetBSD 1.x and have  
>> something useful
>> to build on.
>
> That sounds quite reasonable, but you are then working with an old
> system.  What I really dream of is a system which is kept current,
> updated but not bloated.  I mean, I don't want great, fancy features
> but a system which is not 5 or more years old, but current.

   To satisfy these requirements, a fork is really the only option.

   Part of the problem is GCC...It is generally a decent compiler  
(much less offensive since 4.x), but GCC itself is bigger than some  
entire operating systems.  "Desktop environments" (garbage like KDE  
and Gnome, both of which seem to be actively trying to become slow,  
bloated pigs like Windows) are also a major contributor.

   It should be possible to take a snapshot of a current, modern OS  
like NetBSD, strip it down to remove all the bloated crap, and  
replace the compiler with something lean, like perhaps pcc or lcc.   
It would then be maintained separately WITH DISCIPLINE to keep it  
from becoming bloated.  It is that discipline that NetBSD has lacked  
over the past 5-7 years, and now it's a bloated pig.

   I used to love NetBSD; I've used it on many architectures since  
v0.9.  When Ragge first got the MicroVAX-II support working back in  
1994 or os, I was one of the first to boot it.  But now it is so  
bloated as to be almost unusable on all but the newest, fastest  
machines with tons of RAM.  It is a real shame.  I hate the notion of  
forks, and I hate the fragmentation of the BSD community, but I've  
believed for a couple of years now that a fork & stripdown of NetBSD  
is something that would be of benefit to a great many people...for  
use on old machines as well as new.

> Sorry, english is not my native tongue and I'm not sure I really
> express what I mean.

   I think your English is fine! :-)

         -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL