Survey :

The chorus project was released at INRIA at the end of 1979 with the goal
to look at the fundamental ideas of assisting distributed systems. Chorus is
intended to provide the basis upon which the diverse tools for distributed
computing could be hooked up efficiently and with as little effort as feasible.

Chorus offers access and location transparency. Chorus (model 3) runs on

different laptop architectures based on MC 68000s and Intel 386 (e.g. IBM
computer/AT and Bull SM ninety) interconnected through an Ethernet
nearby area network. It presents a prolonged UNIX system V interface
which can be used without changes by way of present UNIX applications.
Chorus is a new message passing kernel which systems distributed
processing into actors. Actors are local sequential processes. each actor is
placed on a single site and may manipulate local objects. Actors talk only
by means of explicit trade of asynchronous messages. a set of cooperating
actors form an activity that's the distributed processing unit. Actors are
mobile. The operating systems, e.g. UNIX, are implemented as servers on
top of the kernel. Actors ship and obtain messages via ports. Whether
nearby or remote, ports are a uniform view of communication. Actors do
not always understand where correspondent ports are placed. RPC,
asynchronous message passing and multicasting is supported. In Chorus,
applications are described in terms of modules. A module is a collection of
procedures which are usually stored collectively in a single actor. Each
entity (object, actor, port) is uniquely identified with a global name. This
name is not used again for designating any other entity. protection in
Chorus. objects can be manipulated only with the aid of locally residing
actors which have received a so-called link to them. A linkage control
procedure tests the validity of a special request. objects can be blanketed
via periodically converting passwords revealed only to legal actors.
Replication, transaction or failure handling aren't cited.
Comparison between Ameoba, Mach and Chorus:
Ameoba:
● Time-sharing OS
● Based on Microkernel
● Automatic Load Balancing
● Automatic File Replication
● Object-based DSM used

Mach OS:
● Designed for 1 Multiprocessor
● Extensive multiprocessor support
● Memory mapped objects
● Page based DSM
● No group communication
Chorus:
● Flexible Virtual Memory Implementation
● Binary Level OS emulation
● A synchronized communication
● Page based DSM
Advantages:
Chorus is a small kernel on which some of different operating systems can
run simultaneously. It tries to specify layered communication protocols
unambiguously.