On Tue, Feb 11, 2003 at 02:36:48AM +1100, James Buchanan wrote:
> Is it possible to design a SMP-Linux kernel with architecture
> independent SMP support, for example, like the VFS provides an
> interface to specific filesystems, the "VSMP" can provide an
> architecture independent way to support SMP?
Why stop there? Why not make a complete hardware abstraction layer?
Oh, by the way, I have two words for you:
DUCK!
:-)
> There can be a function
> that does the spinlock stuff and underneath is a machine dependent
> implementation (this is already done for x86, what about other MP
> capable architectures?), and same for the scheduler. Lots of other
> stuff like TLB issues and so on would have to be taken care of as
> well. I'm no expert on SMP so I don't really know if a "virtual" SMP
> support is possible in the way I am describing it.
What you are describing sounds very much like a Virtual Machine.
Been there, done that, and it does have some benefits.
Good Luck,
John S.
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