From owner-freebsd-threads@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Nov 19 19:53:11 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-threads@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5B6BE16A4CE; Fri, 19 Nov 2004 19:53:11 +0000 (GMT) Received: from mail.ntplx.net (mail.ntplx.net [204.213.176.10]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EFD5A43D49; Fri, 19 Nov 2004 19:53:10 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from deischen@freebsd.org) Received: from sea.ntplx.net (sea.ntplx.net [204.213.176.11]) iAJJr9qu004615; Fri, 19 Nov 2004 14:53:09 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 14:53:07 -0500 (EST) From: Daniel Eischen X-X-Sender: eischen@sea.ntplx.net To: Joe Marcus Clarke In-Reply-To: <419E38A0.2030308@marcuscom.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Virus-Scanned: by AMaViS and Clam AntiVirus (mail.ntplx.net) cc: Joe Marcus Clarke cc: Alexander Nedotsukov cc: freebsd-threads@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Question about our default pthread stack size X-BeenThere: freebsd-threads@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list Reply-To: Daniel Eischen List-Id: Threading on FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 19:53:11 -0000 On Fri, 19 Nov 2004, Joe Marcus Clarke wrote: > Daniel Eischen wrote: > | The thing I worry about is these piggy applications being the > | driving force behind our stack size. If they really are designed > | to need a huge stack size, they should be the ones that change > | to support it, not the other way around. Do they know their own > | stack space requirements or do they just ignore it because it > | isn't a problem so far (on Linux)? > > The bottom line is that they don't know their stack requirements, but > the OS is accommodating, so they never have to really find out until we > submit a bug to them. However, some applications (e.g. gstreamer, > libgnomecups, etc.) cannot be fixed without massive architectural > changes. Just to be clear, these applications _are_ overrunning the > default stack. FYI, I don't suggest they change their stack usage, just that they create threads with thread attributes specifying a larger stack size. If they recognize they have large stack space requirements, it should be easily solved without an architectural overhaul. I assume your patches do exactly this; are the GNOME developers reluctant to incorporate your patches? I'm not going to argue very strongly against changing the default stack size. I just think the onus should be on the larger applications to recognize that they need larger stacks and to explicitly set it. There may also be other applications that create a lot of threads which may need to lower the stack size if the default were changed. -- DE