From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Apr 26 21:51:55 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D4A6516A4CE for ; Tue, 26 Apr 2005 21:51:55 +0000 (GMT) Received: from pi.codefab.com (pi.codefab.com [199.103.21.227]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 96F9943D68 for ; Tue, 26 Apr 2005 21:51:55 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from cswiger@mac.com) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pi.codefab.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 117A85CE7; Tue, 26 Apr 2005 17:51:55 -0400 (EDT) Received: from pi.codefab.com ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (pi.codefab.com [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 45915-01; Tue, 26 Apr 2005 17:51:51 -0400 (EDT) Received: from [192.168.1.3] (pool-68-161-53-96.ny325.east.verizon.net [68.161.53.96]) by pi.codefab.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1DE185C52; Tue, 26 Apr 2005 17:51:49 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <426EB7E3.5040608@mac.com> Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 17:51:31 -0400 From: Chuck Swiger Organization: The Courts of Chaos User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.7) Gecko/20050414 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Lord Raiden References: <5.2.0.9.2.20050425231442.00a408b0@192.168.0.25> <5.2.0.9.2.20050425231442.00a408b0@192.168.0.25> <5.2.0.9.2.20050426174605.00aca310@192.168.0.25> In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.2.20050426174605.00aca310@192.168.0.25> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at codefab.com cc: cpghost@cordula.ws cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Questions about processes X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 21:51:55 -0000 Lord Raiden wrote: >> These are kernel threads. 5.x is more modular than 4.x and a lot >> of functionality has been moved to internal threads (for the sake >> of SMP). There's really nothing wrong with this; esp. since the >> number of threads is still pretty small :) >> >> The kernel may create more such threads if it needs them; like e.g. >> when using GBDE or so. > > AH! So that explains those. Cool. Good info to know. ^_^ Is > there a benefit to these threads being modular if I might ask? I'm sure > there is, but I'm just curious what they might be. Sure. These threads can be scheduled to run on any processor in a SMP system, and can run in parallel, whereas the older 4.x architecture had one giant lock over almost everything (called "Giant" :-), meaning only one kernel thread could run at a time, using only one CPU. -- -Chuck