OS/2 2.0, Summer ’91 Edition

Re:OS/2 2.0, Summer ’91 Edition by temac on Sunday April 09, 2017 @04:39PM (#14074248)

The NT kernel is not "really" (<-- read that: at all) a microkernel with message passing. The kernel space scope (but not constraints, for example their is no stable kernel/user ABI on NT) is actually very similar to the one of Linux.

And even would it be true, this does not translate in any way into complete Windows systems being more lightweight than complete Linux systems.

As for the supposed academical "superiority", maybe you can explain further in detail on which points?

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Re:OS/2 2.0, Summer ’91 Edition by JdeBP on Monday April 10, 2017 @03:10AM (#14076632)

> read that: at all

And that's the point where you went wrong. (-:

It is wrong to assert that Windows NT has no message passing "at all".

The original design of Windows NT had applications opening LPC connections to a server process, the Client-Server Runtime SubSystem, and sending it messages for many API calls. Although the graphics system has since moved into the kernel and then partly moved back out again, some of this application-mode message passing to a CSRSS server process remains in Windows NT even to this day. All interaction with the LSASS is also client-server application-mode message passing.

And there is a lot of message passing inside the kernel. The entire I/O subsystem involves passing around IORPs, which are messages.

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