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Date:      Mon, 2 Dec 1996 23:10:51 -0500
From:      "David S. Miller" <davem@jenolan.rutgers.edu>
To:        avalon@coombs.anu.edu.au
Cc:        dyson@freebsd.org, dennis@etinc.com, kpneal@pobox.com, hackers@freebsd.org, sparclinux@vger.rutgers.edu
Subject:   Re: TCP/IP bandwidth bragging
Message-ID:  <199612030410.XAA18471@jenolan.caipgeneral>
In-Reply-To: <199612030346.WAA13314@caipfs.rutgers.edu> (message from Darren Reed on Tue, 3 Dec 1996 14:46:56 %2B1100 (EDT))

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   From: Darren Reed <avalon@coombs.anu.edu.au>
   Date: Tue, 3 Dec 1996 14:46:56 +1100 (EDT)

   Why is it that whenever you pop your head up onto NetBSD or FreeBSD
   you look like a jerk waving the Linux flag and trying to cause
   trouble ?

I was CC:'d and critisized for benchmark numbers I claim in my
signature, and I am defending my accomplishments.

   Tell me, does Linux implement STREAMS in the kernel with a properly
   stacked network implementation, using DLPI and TLPI with fine grain
   mutexes and locks ?

Oh yes, then we'll have real performance.  Take a look at how many
fastpaths and shortcuts the Solaris folks have to do to overcome the
performance problems assosciated with streams.  The Solaris
performance people are constantly breaking their necks to find new
ways to overcome these issues.  If Ritchie couldn't get it right,
perhaps this is good enough cause that it isn't such a hot idea, and
that the implementation needs to be done differently (see below) or
the entire idea trashed.

Streams can be done at the user level with minimal kernel support.

The only reason it is completely in the kernel in most commercial
systems is that someone let it in there in the first place.  It is
very hard to "take out" something like that once it is in, especially
in a commercial source tree.

Fine grained mutexes and locks, yes that will indeed get you scaling
better than a master lock implementation (which is what Linux has at
the moment).  But it is not a reasonable way to implement scalable SMP
systems.

For how I think it should be done, investigate the numerous papers
available on non-blocking synchronization and (harder to find) self
locking data structures.

---------------------------------------------////
Yow! 11.26 MB/s remote host TCP bandwidth & ////
199 usec remote TCP latency over 100Mb/s   ////
ethernet.  Beat that!                     ////
-----------------------------------------////__________  o
David S. Miller, davem@caip.rutgers.edu /_____________/ / // /_/ ><



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