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Date:      Thu, 15 Feb 2001 16:41:47 -0700 (MST)
From:      Nate Williams <nate@yogotech.com>
To:        Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com>
Cc:        seth@pengar.com (Seth Leigh), nate@yogotech.com (Nate Williams), freebsd-smp@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: possible problem with SMP?
Message-ID:  <14988.26939.53659.399934@nomad.yogotech.com>
In-Reply-To: <200102152336.QAA09980@usr08.primenet.com>
References:  <5.0.2.1.0.20010215020051.01b9fc70@hobbiton.shire.net> <200102152336.QAA09980@usr08.primenet.com>

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> In effect, both these models are a call-conversion model, where you
> exchange a blocking call for a non-blocking call (or a block on an
> LWP, and the creation of a new LWP to continue running), plus a
> thread context switch.
> 
> Neither of these models improves concurrency on a UP system.

Sure they do.  Not in all cases, but in most cases they do ipmrove
concurrency since they're allowing other threads to execute while a
non-threaded application would block on that system call.

It does not scale as well on a UP system like SA's do, but in many case
the threading model is more effecient 'most of the time' vs. a
multi-process model.

> Threaded applications will block on resource unavailability; it's
> really irrelevent whether this happens in the kernel or in user
> space.

Except the cost of 'switching context' in userland is much lower than
in the kernel.  (As you said, this is the what 'Lightweight' implies
with LWP's. :)



Nate


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