From owner-freebsd-current Tue Oct 29 13:55:12 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5F2D137B401 for ; Tue, 29 Oct 2002 13:55:11 -0800 (PST) Received: from flamingo.mail.pas.earthlink.net (flamingo.mail.pas.earthlink.net [207.217.120.232]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 48EE143E75 for ; Tue, 29 Oct 2002 13:55:09 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from tlambert2@mindspring.com) Received: from pool0057.cvx22-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net ([209.179.198.57] helo=mindspring.com) by flamingo.mail.pas.earthlink.net with esmtp (Exim 3.33 #1) id 186eKJ-0003qe-00; Tue, 29 Oct 2002 13:55:07 -0800 Message-ID: <3DBF0366.10FCC8E@mindspring.com> Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 13:53:42 -0800 From: Terry Lambert X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.79 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Matthew Dillon Cc: Raymond Kohler , current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: questions about the state of current References: <2570443.1035916854787.JavaMail.wshttp@emss03g01.ems.lmco.com> <3DBEF55E.A0F9ED1B@mindspring.com> <200210292106.g9TL6aoc010659@apollo.backplane.com> <3DBEFE24.1E9DDB89@mindspring.com> <200210292146.g9TLkvWi010975@apollo.backplane.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Matthew Dillon wrote: > Interrupt threads have 'grown' on me. I like them. > But I come from an embedded world where switching threads > costs no more then a procedure call. The way I figure it, > we will eventually be able to make -current's scheduler > efficient enough such that the overhead of switching to > an interrupt thread becomes a non-issue, and they take care > of the big problem we've always had with interrupts under > SMP... managing interrupts in an SMP environment. Don't get me wrong... 15% is heavy overhead, but I expect that, over time, that performance gap will at least narrow, if not disappear, if hyperthreading becomes domething other than a parketing buzzword. > I am somewhat partial to the interrupt context stealing > idea too, though I'm not sure if the added complexity is > worth it (time may be better spent improving the scheduler). I like context stealing, too. I've liked it ever since I first saw it in Windows 95 back in 1996; it's been common practice in the Windows world for a long time. -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message