Why do ps, uptime (& probably others) check vmunix version?

[Adam Hamilton]

In article <415 at ncr-sd.UUCP> greg at ncr-sd.UUCP (Greg Noel) writes:
>In article <6773 at boring.UUCP> jack at mcvax.UUCP (Jack Jansen) writes:
>>Something I was thinking of is teaching the boot program about symbolic
>>links. That way, you can have /vmunix.1, /vmunix.2, etc.
>>Now, as soon as the system comes up, some program, probably /etc/init,
>>will setup a symbolic link from the currently running unix to /vmunix.
>
>Why a symbolic link?  Why not a hard link?  We did this for a System V
>port we were doing; it worked just fine.  It searched the files given
>...............

Our System V does a "uname" to get the version then links this file in
/etc/namelists to /unix.  It's VERY convenient in a development
environment and when new base versions arrive. And all you have to do
is keep the version numbers unique :-)