*BSD News Article 89983


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From: Michael Hancock <michaelh@cet.co.jp>
Newsgroups: comp.programming.threads,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: [??] pure kernel vs. dual concurrency implementations
Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 14:39:44 +0900
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Chris Csanady wrote:
> 
> Michael Hancock wrote:
> >
> > I've been talking to some people who are pro pure kernel threading vs.
> > a   dual kernel and userland model when it comes to implementation on a
> > traditional Unix kernel design like FreeBSD.
> >
> 
> There was a discussion on the hackers a while ago with the subject
> "Re: clone()/rfork()/threads (Re: Inferno for FreeBSD)"  that you
> might want to look at.  I didn't follow it closely, but Terry explained
> a bunch of stuff, and mentioned that the DEC model is what we want..

I read that and DEC's two-level implementation sounds impressive and clean.

However, for FreeBSD I think I have to agree with others that the 1 to 1 
model is the way to go for the following reasons.

1) The simplicity will help get bugs out of the development cycle sooner.  
We still aren't using a reentrant libc and this and other areas will need 
time and effort.  I rather not go through 2 to 3 years of instability.

2) We will get more quality improvements to the kernel as it is made more 
flexible to handle processes, threads, and in-betweenies.

3) The resident performance freaks will have more incentive to find ways to 
get context switch times even lower.

Regards,


Mike Hancock