Re: LINUX is obsolete

• Subject: Re: LINUX is obsolete
• From: jonathan@ukmug.uk.mugnet.org (Jonathan Allen)
• Date: 3 Feb 92 07:43:00 GMT
• Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
• Organization: MUGNET UK Backbone (UKMUG)

 In article <12605@star.cs.vu.nl>, ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) wrote:
 > In article <1992Jan29.141212.29636@epas.toronto.edu> meggin@epas.utoronto.ca (David Megginson) writes:
 >>
 >>Why does the
 >>Intel architecture _not_ allow drivers to be independent programs?
 > 
 > The drivers have to read and write the device registers in I/O space, and
 > this cannot be done in user mode on the 286 and 386. If it were possible
 > to do I/O in a protected way in user space, all the I/O tasks could have
 > been user programs, like FS and MM.
 
 Surely this could have been done by a minute task just to read/write a
 given port address in one message ?  The security could have been checked
 like everything else using the process table ...
 
 Sure it would not have been at all efficient, but would have given
 the independance at a price.
 
 Jonathan
 
 
 
 

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