From owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Mar 26 09:20:12 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 35C0937B404; Wed, 26 Mar 2003 09:20:12 -0800 (PST) Received: from magic.adaptec.com (magic-mail.adaptec.com [208.236.45.100]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3210C43F93; Wed, 26 Mar 2003 09:20:11 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from scott_long@btc.adaptec.com) Received: from redfish.adaptec.com (redfish.adaptec.com [162.62.50.11]) by magic.adaptec.com (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id h2QHJIl02754; Wed, 26 Mar 2003 09:19:18 -0800 Received: from btc.btc.adaptec.com (btc.btc.adaptec.com [10.100.0.52]) by redfish.adaptec.com (8.8.8+Sun/8.8.8) with ESMTP id JAA00985; Wed, 26 Mar 2003 09:20:04 -0800 (PST) Received: from btc.adaptec.com (hollin [10.100.253.56]) by btc.btc.adaptec.com (8.8.8+Sun/8.8.8) with ESMTP id KAA08644; Wed, 26 Mar 2003 10:20:00 -0700 (MST) Message-ID: <3E81E142.3040907@btc.adaptec.com> Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 10:20:02 -0700 From: Scott Long User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.2.1) Gecko/20030206 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Robert Watson References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-31.9 required=5.0 tests=EMAIL_ATTRIBUTION,IN_REP_TO,QUOTED_EMAIL_TEXT,REFERENCES, REPLY_WITH_QUOTES,USER_AGENT_MOZILLA_UA autolearn=ham version=2.50 X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.50 (1.173-2003-02-20-exp) cc: arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: 1:1 Threading implementation. X-BeenThere: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussion related to FreeBSD architecture List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 17:20:13 -0000 Robert Watson wrote: > On Tue, 25 Mar 2003, Jeff Roberson wrote: > > >>Thanks to the foundation provided by Julian, David Xu, Mini, Dan >>Eischen, and everyone else who has participated with KSE and libpthread >>development Mini and I have developed a 1:1 threading implementation. >>This code works in parallel with KSE and does not break it in any way. >>It actually helps bring M:N threading closer by testing out shared bits. > > > My feeling is that this is an excellent strategy to get us productionable > kernel-supported threads for the upcoming 5.x release while permitting > continued R&D (and I think it is R&D) into the M:N threading > possibilities. One nice thing about this construction is that the cost > was very low given the existing investment in KSE, yet the payoff is very > high. And it will provide a nice migration path when KSE is > productionable for sites interested in doing that: thread-reliant > applications will no longer be explicitly linked against a non-native > threading package (linuxthreads), which is the status quo for large > threaded applications on FreeBSD right now. So it seems to me that a > relatively straight-forward strategy gets things moving: > [...] I'd like to add a big 'Me too' here also. 1:1 gives us an excellent milestone towards having KSE work for 5-STABLE. The June 30 deadline for KSE has been quickly approaching, and this work achieves all of the minimum objectives that we were aiming for by that date. I see this as a win-win for everyone; application threading is vastly improved, the existing KSE work gets real-world testing/exposure/validation, and the M:N work can now procede without any of the pressure and stress that it had before. In the spirit that FreeBSD is as much for research as it is for production, it's important to remember that M:N should be kept around and a research project through the RELENG_5 branch and into 6-CURRENT. Once it is stable and proven, we can look at backporting it into 5-STABLE. Overall, I'm incredibly pleased by this work! This is a major milestone for 5-STABLE, and one that will make it a worthwhile branch. Scott