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Is the Microkernel Technology well suited for the Support of Object-Oriented Operating Systems: the Guide Experience


R. Balter, P. Y. Chevalier, A. Freyssinet, D. Hagimont, S. Lacourte, and X. Rousset de Pina
Unit Mixte Bull-IMAG/Systmes, 2 avenue de Vignate, 38610 Gires, France

Abstract

This paper describes our experience in the implementation of the Guide distributed object-oriented system on top of the Mach 3.0 microkernel. While many experimental distributed object-oriented environments have been implemented on Unix and much less on a bare machine, the emerging microkernel technology seems to provide a well suited trade-off between these two approaches. Microkernels provide modularity and flexibility for the design of a distributed operating system based on the client-server architecture, support of lightweight processes, efficient inter-process communication and the ability to implement flexible memory management policies. The goal of this paper is to provide an evaluation of the suitability of these features for the construction of distributed object-oriented operating systems.


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