Re: Linux Kernel constraints!
H. Peter Anvin (hpa@transmeta.com)
21 Jan 1999 23:09:14 GMT
Followup to: <F1C298E6C941D111A18500805F89245932C188@MIDCBDC>
By author: Yogesh Bansal <yogesh.bansal@tatainfotech.com>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> Recently(dec.) in WindowsNT magazine comparisons/similarities between
> various flavours of unix and nt had come. In the same article Linux was
> ignored as enterprise os on account of following kernel 'limitations' :
>
> 1. kernel is not preemptive. ie even a higher priority user thread cant
> cause another thread to be swapped if the other thread is presently running
> in privileged/kernel context.
> 2. kernel is not reentrant. ie.only one thread in kernel context at a time.
> 3. kernel is not multi processing in the sense that on multiprocessor
> systems it will run on only one cpu at a time.
>
> will somebody can clarify these doubts and version which enabled it to be
> otherwise.
> yogi
>
2 and 3 are just plain incorrect, although the granularity could be
improved. 1 is true, but is not a major problem in practice, except
for hard real time. As an "enterprise OS" hard real time is hardly a
requirement.
Sounds like standard WindowsNT mag. FUD to me (this mag seems to be a
major source of FUD these days.)
-hpa
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