Talk:Dom0

Changed "first" to "base"

I've worked with IBM VM/360, VM/SP1 and VM/SP2. The architecture of the IBM System/360 is known as "base displacement". The base is the beginning of an addressed memory space. The displacement is the byte count higher in that space of the variable's memory location. The base is at the zero byte count displacement. Thus, I suggest instead of getting wrapped around the confusion of referring to the zero domain as the first domain started at boot, we can refer to it as the base domain; zero and base being more synonymous than zero and one (first).
GarveyPatrickD 04:51, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

OK, Ian Campbell?, please bear with me while I reconcile my understanding of the word "initial" with my understanding of the term "Dom0". "Initial" tends to say to me that it doesn't have any special use beyond getting the system started, sort of like booting code. Whereas, I understand that "Dom0" has a whole lot of responsibilities to the DomU domains and must stay around until everything is shutdown. So I think "initial" falls short of contributing to a full understanding of the "Dom0" concept. I'll gladly accept the replacement of "base", but whatever we leave in this article needs to carry as much of the "Dom0" concept as a single adjective can, as this page in my opinion probably belongs in the Beginner and Glossary categories.

"initial" is the correct term for this domain and has been used as such pretty much since day one. Trying to shoehorn "as much of the dom0 concept into a single adjective" as possible is IMHO counter productive, if that word does not convey sufficient meaning then some additional text will be required. As far as I can see that additional text is already present.

OK, I'll leave this for now, but I just feel "initial" is not a sufficient description. (I think that's called agreeing to disagree.)