On Friday 01 February 2002 05:14 pm, you wrote:
> Lex,
>
> > One possibility is to substitute a different malloc() library that
> > doesn't use sbrk(), and try to convince the system libraries
> > to use your substitution.  Feasible, but whenever I start thinking of
> > spending that much effort on it, I start wondering how hard it would
> > really be to make a segmented memory manager....
>
> It's not _that_ hard but it's not exactly trivial either. The major
> point is fixing GC to honor the constraints imposed by segmented memory.
> In other words, you'd have to identify segments and not touch anything
> inbetween them. This is effectively equivalent to having "fixed" objects
> (e.g., objects that are unmovable by the garbage collector) and that
> would actually be a valuable addition to Squeak in general ;-)
>
> BTW, I am seriously surprised that even today there are no better ways
> of having user-level virtual management functions on *nix. In the end, a
> lot of applications (like OODBs) can benefit _greatly_ from these
> abilities and the inherent instability of the described schemes doesn't
> sound like *nix at all. Isn't it ironic that Windows can get this
> actually right?!
>
> Cheers,
>   - Andreas

	Actually, there are, depending on the Unice. I think linux, being a mish 
mash of Sys V and BSD, has all sorts of memory allocation options. I'd have 
to go diggin around my books again. But malloc is not the only option.

	Daniel.