Re: any reasons to recompile kernel?

Am 22.07.2005 um 10:48 schrieb Maurice Ling:

> My apologies first, but to me, it is like saying "if you don't know  
> that you need to take one medicine and not the other, you don't  
> need to take the medicine."

Let's translate it to: "Attempt to solve your task from userland,  
first. Then, try to do it with an kernel extension. If this still  
doesn't work, it's likely you demand something which isn't doable at  
all."

In few cases, however, you want to change Apple's fundamental design  
decisions. This is when you want a changed kernel.

Remember, only one application can change the kernel at a time. If  
two of them demand a custom kernel, you'd have to cooperate with this  
other vendor to produce a combined version as well. This mostly rules  
out custom kernels for public available software.


> Simply, I do not want extra nicey nicey GUI stuffs that comes with  
> Tiger.

You share my opinion. Especially, I'd like to have Panther's Mail.app  
back[1].


> I have 2 systems, G4 1GHz and G4 733MHz. I am under the assumption  
> that using Tiger on my "old" machines will just slow it down.

You must be a Windows user to get to that conclusion. Ever since Mac  
OS X's Public Beta, each newer version was less CPU and memory hungry.

Same for Tiger. They manage somehow to fill no less than 5 GB with OS  
+ DevTools on disk. This is 50% more over Panther, but the GUI is  
again snappier. RAM usage is more efficient, swap files are smaller.  
I'm using a 500 MHz G3 iBook.


> So now, Java aside, can I do a kernel upgrade, without changing the  
> whole OSX? What are the differences between the kernel of Panther  
> and Tiger or Jaguar and Panther that makes it better?

Obviously, you'll have to find out yourself, buddy. Nobody will do  
the legwork for you, sources are available.



Markus



[1] No, Neither Jaguar's nor Panther's Mail.app will run on Tiger.  
They both die, failing to find some frameworks/methods.

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Dipl. Ing. Markus Hitter
http://www.jump-ing.de/