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From: gns2@po.CWRU.Edu (Gabriel N. Schaffer)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: Win32 CreateThread() vs Unix fork()
Date: 13 Dec 1995 02:52:12 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Lines: 60
Message-ID: <4alf4s$j1h@madeline.INS.CWRU.Edu>
References: <4ab85f$idq@news.voicenet.com> <4adu72$nkf@heathers.stdio.com> <4aig98$mca@madeline.ins.cwru.edu> <4akev2$e07@rznews.rrze.uni-erlangen.de>
Reply-To: gns2@po.CWRU.Edu (Gabriel N. Schaffer)
NNTP-Posting-Host: roo.ins.cwru.edu
Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:10272 comp.unix.advocacy:12085
In a previous article, msmeissn@cip.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (Marcus Meissner) says:
>Gabriel N. Schaffer <gns2@po.CWRU.Edu> wrote:
>>In a previous article, risner@stdio.com () says:
>>>In <4ab85f$idq@news.voicenet.com>, 900RR (900RR) writes:
>>>>Win32's CreateThread() is an extremely fast and efficient way of
>>>>
>>>>By contrast, Unix uses fork() to start an entire new process to
>>>
>>>>In any case, does anyone know how much more efficient a server
>>>>application could run under an NT system than the same app, same
>>>>hardware on something like FreeBSD or Linux?
>>>
>>>>Do veteran Unix programmers avoid fork() like the plague?
>>>No.
>
>Ever heard of select(2)? Nonblocking IO?
>At least my single-process-httpd runs happily using it.
>
>>Of course not, they have no choice.
>
>If they need external processes, right. Else some coding with select()
>will help.
Yes, it will help, but it's not always possible. Ever seen an ftpd that
didn't fork?
>>>Look at http://corp.novell.com/press/pr95251.htm
>>>It has a article from ZIFF which compares NT and various commercial UN*X
>>>systems. UnixWare was VERY NEARLY twice as fast in terms of transactions
>>>per second as compared to NT. SCO was around 50% faster than NT.
>>
>>Ah, but since NT scaled at 100% and UW at only 80%, you need only add a few
>>more CPUs to make NT much faster than the rest. In case you don't get what
>>I'm saying here, any test which shows 100% scaling is severely flawed
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>because that's like having an engine run at 100% efficiency -- it's just
>>not physically possible.
>
>100% scaleable? Wasn't that mentioned under 'impossible' in the OS concepts
>lectures I've heard?
>Or have I missed some reference/comment of yours?
Perhaps you missed where I said the test must have been severly flawed.
>>>I would be interested in seeing a test compare of servers for Linux, FreeBSD,
>>>UnixWare, SCO, NT, OS/2 because this article did not contain any free UN*X tested.
>>There were no free versions of SMP Unix to test.
>
>Dunno, but Linux 1.4 should be out in the next half year.
>And I thought one of the free *BSDs had SMP support already?
Not that I've heard. The OS would have had to have worked on their test
platform too, though. I think it was a Compaq.
--
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