Re: Two questions regarding LINUX SMP "goals"

Robert M. Hyatt (hyatt@cis.uab.edu)
Fri, 19 Mar 1999 12:21:34 -0600 (CST)


> There are no panaceas and any implementation of an SMP Kernel is going to
> favor some types of applications over others. Is there a "specification" or
> "goal" written down somewhere that tells what types of applications
> LINUX/SMP is intended to favor?
>
> Is performance or stability the more preferred goal? Where stability means
> applications will not require recoding as the SMP Kernel matures.
> -

I can only offer this. I have been using posix threads for almost 2
years, starting on kernel 2.0.32, going thru many of the 2.1 kernels
including almost all from 2.1.97 on, and then 2.2.0/1/2/3 as well.
The applications receive _no_ changes in moving them from one version
to the next, because nothing on the 'user-side' has changed, except
that performance has picked up a bit.

If you have something that uses posix threads, it should run on
_everything_ including even Solaris. If you use traditional non-posix-
threads things like fork/mmap/shmat/etc (your choice for how to get at
shared memory, I have used mmap and the shmget/shmat with equal ease
and success) then you might occasionally run into something odd if you
use some specific linux things. IE if you depend on fork() to be _very_
fast, you will be happy under linux, but not under other flavors of
unix.

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