Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 00:52:52 -0400 (EDT) From: Chuck Robey <chuckr@glue.umd.edu> To: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au> Cc: Kent A Vander Velden <graphix@iastate.edu>, freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Threads across processors Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.00.9808250047200.361-100000@picnic.mat.net> In-Reply-To: <199808242241.WAA02879@dingo.cdrom.com>
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On Mon, 24 Aug 1998, Mike Smith wrote: > > > > On Mon, 24 Aug 1998, Kent A Vander Velden wrote: > > > > > > > > Hi. Does -current support spliting the threads of a single process > > > across multiple processors? > > > > Current still has user threads, which are pretty much unaware of which > > processor there on. There's been work towards kernel threads, but it's > > not yet to the point that you can play with it. > > This level of thread support requires that *all* thread mutexes be > handled by the kernel (atomicity guarantee). It's several major steps > beyond where we are now, and not something that's necessarily a good > idea. Yeah, I agree. I've written some threaded code for classes, and it worked just fine. You get some definite speed improvements for threaded code (if it's kernel threads and you have multiple processors) but honestly, I don't think that there's all that much code out there that makes use of it (it's a bear to write). Even the stuff that's out there, much of it is GUI type stuff, you don't get all the improvement unless you're really seeing batch type stuff, do you? For the most part, for the batch type stuff, I'm still willing to do the multiple process route, client-server stuff. You do see benefit from that, the complexity is lower, and you don't tear your hair out dealing with locking. > > -- > \\ Sometimes you're ahead, \\ Mike Smith > \\ sometimes you're behind. \\ mike@smith.net.au > \\ The race is long, and in the \\ msmith@freebsd.org > \\ end it's only with yourself. \\ msmith@cdrom.com > > > > ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- Chuck Robey | Interests include any kind of voice or data chuckr@glue.umd.edu | communications topic, C programming, and Unix. 213 Lakeside Drive Apt T-1 | Greenbelt, MD 20770 | I run Journey2 and picnic (FreeBSD-current) (301) 220-2114 | and jaunt (NetBSD). ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
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