mrt@mrt.mach.cs.cmu.edu (Mary Thompson) (03/01/90)
This news bulletin is an attempt to answer some of the frequently
asked questions about Mach and to provide updates on the current
status of our releases and research. This information is accurate
to the best of my knowledge, but is always subject to change.
It is my intent to periodically post updates of the status information
to this forum.
Mary R. Thompson, Project Mach, Manager
Mach Documentation
-----------
There are 2 ways to obtain Mach documentation. You can send mail to
mach@cs.cmu.edu. Please provide your full name and surface mail address
in the message.
You can also FTP the documents. Telnet to wb1@cs.cmu.edu (128.2.250.16),
as "anonymous", then "cd /usr/mach/public/doc". You can then use
the standard ftp commands, e.g. get, ls with relative path names for the files.
The articles are available in postscript(.ps) and ascii(.doc). There is
an INDEX file available in that directory.
-----------
Information about Mach
-----------
Two large subscription forums exist for the Mach user community: A mailing
list, info-mach@cs, and a netnews bb, comp.os.mach. The mail address,
mach@cs.cmu.edu can be used for licensing, documentation and general
release information. Technical questions to that address sometimes get
answered, but not always.
The answers to frequently asked questions are now on file on wb1.cs.cmu.edu
in the publically ftp'able directory /usr/mach/public/notes. See the previous
section on how to anonymously ftp from CMU.
Mach 2.5
-----------
Mach 2.5 tapes for Vaxes and Sun3s have been available since the beginning
of December and for the IBM-RT since the beginning of February. The Mach 2.5
release is a completely functional Unix system (BSD4.3 + CMU enhancements) and
requires the recipient to have a BSD4.3 Unix source license. NFS support is
also available to holders of a NFS 3.2 Educational Institution License.
This release is also available over the INTERNET via our SUP (Software
Update Protocol) program.
Requests for a Mach 2.5 distribution should be sent to mach@cs.cmu.edu.
The distribution is free of charge, but we ask that you supply the tapes.
Foreign sites are also asked to pay for the postage.
-----------
Mt Xinu release Mach 2.6
-----------
Mt Xinu will soon take over the standard Mach releases for sites that
want to run the Mach system. Their release will be based on the
Mach 2.5 release with the addition of newer Berkeley TCP/IP code and disk labeling.
The Unix user environment will be an integration of Berkeley "Tahoe"
and CMU functionality which will "look and feel" more like a standard BSD4.3
environment. It will also include X11R4 rather than R3. Additional user
contributed software will be available. The release will be available initially
for Vax, Sun3 and IBM-RT platforms.
This release will require recipients to have an AT&T source code license,
but all other licenses will be included with the Mt Xinu Mach license.
This release will be much more completely documented and better supported
than the CMU releases, but it will not be free.
Send requests for Mach2.6 to mtxinu-mach@mtxinu.com.
Mach 3.0
------------
Mach 3.0 is the pure Mach kernel (without Unix compatibility support)
which will be available without requiring external licenses.
This kernel has been running at CMU for over a year and is now up on
Vax, Sun 3 and PMAX platforms.
CMU has two projects ongoing to provide binary Unix compatibility for
the pure Mach kernel. The first to be completed is based on a
single Mach task with many internal cthreads and a complementary
transparent shared library. It is fully compatible with the 4.3bsd
binaries which ran on earlier versions of Mach and runs on Vax,
Sun 3 and PMAX platforms on the pure Mach kernel. A second effort
to build a restructured OS environment which would also support
BSD Unix is also underway. That system splits all key OS functions
into separate servers whose functions are largely generic (i.e.
independent of Unix functionality) and would be usable for a
variety of OS environments.
Current plans have us distributing the pure kernel with the single
server Unix environment to outside research groups in late spring.
Access to the Unix server would still require Berkeley licensing
but access to the kernel itself, Mach libraries, etc. would not.
Device drivers for most machines would also require licenses from
the appropriate manufacturers.
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Mach on other platforms
-----------
At CMU Mach is running on:
i386: Toshiba 5200 laptop
Intel and Olivetti systems
HP Vectras
68k: Sun 3
Macintosh II, SE/30, IIcx, etc.
IBM RT
VAX: 750, 780, 8600, 8650, 8800, 6200, Microvax II and III.
Decstation 3100
Sun 4/110
NeXT - software released by NeXT
Encore Multimax - software released by Encore Computer Corp.
Sun Sparcstations, and diskless Suns are almost working.
Encore announced some time ago that they are porting Mach to the Motorola 88K
as part of their DARPA funded research to produced a 1,000MIP Symmetric
Shared Memory Multiprocessor. That work is currently ongoing.
Elsewhere Mach has been ported to the Sequent Symmetry, various HP machines,
various experimental IBM machines, the IBM 370, the BBN Butterfly and lots
of other boxes.
Release of the i386 version of Mach is still under discussion. We
are trying to work out the proper mechanics for the release. Once
things have been worked out I will post the information to this list.
The Macintosh version is not yet being distributed due to licensing
issues with Apple. Negotiations are on-going.
-----------aleks@well.sf.ca.us (Brian J. Witt) (03/03/90)
In article <8226@pt.cs.cmu.edu> mrt@mrt.mach.cs.cmu.edu (Mary Thompson) writes: >This news bulletin is an attempt to answer some of the frequently >asked questions about Mach and to provide updates on the current >status of our releases and research. Great!!! ^G^G^G^G Let's keep the fact flowing! >Mach 3.0 >------------ > >Mach 3.0 is the pure Mach kernel (without Unix compatibility support) >which will be available without requiring external licenses. >This kernel has been running at CMU for over a year and is now up on >Vax, Sun 3 and PMAX platforms. [..] >Device drivers for most machines would also require licenses from >the appropriate manufacturers. My understanding (a fact untested) is that "pure Mach" means a machine independent virtual memory manager and message passing mechanism. I'm curious how much memory (real and paged) just this much of Pure-Mach requires. Perhaps a number not counting and disk paging code (Pure-Mach). Can you beat 90K? I'm just wondering if the Mach builders, or researchers with Mach, might enter the parallel processor biz. Shared memory might be the next direction. Instead of explicitly communicating results one message after another, a process would just give up a segment of memory to another node to work on. This segment could hold a column of data... BTW, I'm very impressed with your 'paging' benchmarks against real-live bsd and Unix(tm) boxes. But using a 26meg VAX for running your tests if quite.. quite.. quite.. WiLd ! 8-() ---- "Sometimes doctor, I wake up and don't know who I am..." -- confessions of an abstract data type ---- brian witt USENET: aleks@well.sf.ca.us
mrt@mrt.mach.cs.cmu.edu (Mary Thompson) (03/07/90)
There was at least one error in my previous newletter which has tripped up a few people. In explaining how to ftp documents from CMU, I mis-typed "telnet" to CMU instead of "ftp" from CMU. Guess I should have said connect. At any rate the relevant paragraph should read. ------------------------------------------- You can also FTP the documents. Ftp to wb1@cs.cmu.edu (128.2.250.16), as "anonymous", then "cd /usr/mach/public/doc". You can then use the standard ftp commands, e.g. get, ls with relative path names for the files. The articles are available in postscript(.ps) and ascii(.doc). There is an INDEX file available in that directory. ------------------------------------------ Also, no password is required, just hit <CR> at the passwd prompt. Mary Thompson