Subject: Re: Netscape 2.0beta1 - Port of HotJava to FreeBSD and NetBSD More Usefull?
To: Pete Delaney <pete@RockyMountain.rahul.net>
From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org>
List: netbsd-ports
Date: 10/13/1995 14:10:02
>    > > I heard there was some fairly good progress being made on a Linux port.
>    > > Is this true?  Because if the Linux people have a working version, then a
>    > > FreeBSD/NetBSD version would be almost trivial from there.
>    > 
>    > Not so.  According to Linus (and Alan Cox), Linux has kernel
>    > multithreading.
> 
> I suppose a thread library, like SusOS has, is likely necessary, but I
> really doubt kernel multithreading is necessary. Any bets?

Sun's multithreading as of Solaris is a kernl/user space cooperative
model, with n kernel threads being mapped to m user space threads
(m >= n).

So the only real threading on Solaris is kernel.

The SunOS LWP library (a purely aioread/aiowrite/aiowait/aiocancel based
task switcher) is supported via the kernel calls for binaray compatability
reasons, but an lwp library is not provided for Solaris: you are expected
to use the kernel thread model.

SVR4.2 and above uses the same model.


					Terry Lambert
					terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.