*BSD News Article 89679


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From: Michael Hancock <michaelh@cet.co.jp>
Newsgroups: comp.programming.threads,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: [??] pure kernel vs. dual concurrency implementations
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 16:04:52 -0800
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Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.programming.threads:3243 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:35789

I've been talking to some people who are pro pure kernel threading vs.
a   dual kernel and userland model when it comes to implementation on a
traditional Unix kernel design like FreeBSD.

Assuming a well designed strict kernel implementation and a well
designed dual concurrent model, say like Digital UNIX, both using
FreeBSD as a starting point, which is the way to go?

Pro strict kernel people say:

* simpler model, less complicated scheduler

* high concurrency

Dual concurrency people say:

* better concurrency

* less kernel resource usage problems

In DEC's model it doesn't look like you need to worry about converting
blocking calls to non-blocking calls as in other userland
implementations.  Instead they have some kind of upcall mechanism that
supplies a new kernel execution context to the userland process so that
another thread can be scheduled if the current one is blocked.

Pure kernel proponents say that in the time all that was done a new
kernel thread could have been switched in.

I'm still sitting on the fence.  Comments?

Regards,


Mike Hancock