From owner-freebsd-hackers Sat Apr 25 10:55:01 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id KAA23377 for freebsd-hackers-outgoing; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 10:55:01 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from dyson.iquest.net (dyson.iquest.net [198.70.144.127]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id KAA23335 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 10:54:54 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from toor@dyson.iquest.net) Received: (from root@localhost) by dyson.iquest.net (8.8.8/8.8.8) id MAA11694; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 12:54:50 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from toor) From: "John S. Dyson" Message-Id: <199804251754.MAA11694@dyson.iquest.net> Subject: Re: threads performance In-Reply-To: from Christoph Toshok at "Apr 25, 98 05:51:33 am" To: toshok@Hungry.COM (Christoph Toshok) Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 12:54:50 -0500 (EST) Cc: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL38 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > > I'm working on japhar (the hungry java vm) and I'm primarily using > freebsd for my work. One of the central "features" of japhar is that > it uses platform's thread library -- pthreads on freebsd and linux, > cthreads on nextstep and the hurd. > > On freebsd the performance is just abysmal. Really, it's *awful*. > Just for kicks, I ported the thread api to NSPR (Netscape's Portable > Runtime) and the runtime for javac compiling a trivial .java file > drops from 39 seconds to 18 seconds. > > Are there any plans to address the performance of threads in the > coming weeks/months? The fact that NSPR can drop 21 seconds off the > runtime (in this very contrived example) makes me think that there is > a lot going on in libc_r that is suboptimal, but perhaps there is just > no other way to implement things so they conform to the posix spec. > > I realize kernel threads (a la clone()) are on the horizon, but > there's a lot to be said for making a lightweight user level thread > package, and making it fast. > The issue of kernel threads is on my plate, I have been *ordered* (not in a demanding fashion, but they are my reason for existance at work for awhile. We will also be porting the essence of the work to NetBSD -- NetBSD can take 'em or leave 'em if they want, but we are adding the code to our private NetBSD tree at work.) to do them this week for work (got sick again, so thought I would flamewar instead, since my higher order functions were totally gone :-)). I hope that John Birrell will forgive me, about my delays. :-). John To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message