> That is too early. I mean this is a serious problem that people are
> interested in Hurd NOW because they could be seriously disappointed by its
> current inefficiency. Disk access is so slooooooooow! I hope it will be
> improved and I wonder why it is so inefficient. Any idea ?
There are too many context switches to get any real work done. The real power
of CPUs are shown when they esablish large cache footprints and ``own'' most
of the TLB. When one needs to switch address spaces every time one needs
data (which is not the case in Linux, *BSD, NT etc), this can never be
established.
Note that both OSF and NT are based on Mach technology, however, unlike the
hurd, they effectively use the single server concept. This allows them to
process requests in context.
How? In NT for instance, all processes have 2 gigs reserved for the kernel -
the same in all processes. Therefore, no need to context switch, no need to
have TLB shootdowns and less cache flushing. All resulting in faster
performance.
How do we solve it? LPC (local procedure callls, ie messages) need to be
faster and can not have the aweful side effects that they have now.
-Neal
--
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Neal Walfield [EMAIL PROTECTED]
UMass Lowell - Fox 1512 Phone: 978-934-5347
Fax: 603-415-3645
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
-- H. L. Mencken
