Re: Getting tired of 5.3

[walt <wa1ter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 14 Dec 2004, Weapon of Mass Deduction wrote:

> DragonFly felt the slowest, and FreeBSD 5 felt slower than Linux...

I follow the linux-kernel mailing list every day, so I know that
there has been a huge effort to improve the responsiveness of the
linux kernel in the last few years.

I run the latest linux kernel on my linux box and I can tell how
much better it is now compared to a year or two ago.

I don't have any multi-processor machines (nor do I intend to
buy any) but the reason (IMHO) that FreeBSD-current has suffered
in The Responsiveness Wars is their approach to the SMP problem.

The Giant Kernel Lock problem has been preventing any real
progress for over a year (at least) and seems to be going
nowhere very fast.  Nobody, even ALC, seems to be able to
solve this horrible problem.

Matt's lightweight kernel threads (and related projects) seem
so much more sensible (even to an amateur like me) that I am
expecting a revolution to occur any day now.  (Of course, my
wife has been expecting me to shape up and start being a
Model Husband for over a decade...)