From: Ville Herva <vherva@niksula.hut.fi>
To: John Bradford <john@grabjohn.com>
Cc: helgehaf@aitel.hist.no, jamie@shareable.org,
linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, tosh@is.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp
Subject: Re: The well-factored 386
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2003 16:32:54 +0300 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20030729133254.GT150921@niksula.cs.hut.fi> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <200307291259.h6TCxfC3000230@81-2-122-30.bradfords.org.uk>
On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 01:59:41PM +0100, you [John Bradford] wrote:
> > > I didn't realise he was talking about an x86 emulator. I thought he
> > > was analyzing real hardware.
> > >
> > > The one thing that made it on-topic for me was his quiet suggestion
> > > that "forreal" mode interrupts are faster, and that it might, perhaps,
> > > be possible to modify a Linux kernel to run in that mode - to take
> > > advantage of the faster interrupts.
> >
> > That would have to be a kernel for very special use. The "forreal"
> > mode has protection turned off. As far as I know, that
> > means any user process can take over the cpu as if
> > it was running in kernel mode.
> >
> > Perhaps useful for some embedded use with only a couple well-tested
> > processes running. Still, a programming error could overwrite
> > kernel memory instead of segfaulting.
>
> Anything that's single user and non-networked isn't beyond the realms
> of feasability - it would be useful for a games console, or high
> performance graphics work.
>
> It would be an interesting project, but what concerns me is how well
> implemented these non-standard modes actually are. It's possible that
> there are processors out there that don't work reliably with them, or
> don't implement them at all.
Have you looked at Kernel Mode Linux?
http://web.yl.is.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~tosh/kml/
I don't think it uses "forreal" mode, but it allows running selected user
processes in kernel mode thus getting rid of system call overhead.
[Note to Toshiyuki Maeda: the complete thread is at
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&threadm=expl.8vH.27%40gated-at.bofh.it&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fq%3DThe%2Bwell-factored%2B386%26num%3D50%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3Dutf-8%26sa%3DN%26tab%3Dwg
in case you want to catch some context. The "forreal" idea is mentioned in
the first mail of the thread.]
-- v --
v@iki.fi
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2003-07-29 13:33 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 32+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2003-07-29 12:59 The well-factored 386 John Bradford
2003-07-29 13:32 ` Ville Herva [this message]
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2003-07-28 16:02 Jack Dennon
2003-07-28 16:32 ` David S. Miller
2003-07-28 16:46 ` Andries Brouwer
2003-07-28 16:55 ` David S. Miller
2003-07-28 19:31 ` Herbert Pötzl
2003-07-28 19:41 ` Jamie Lokier
2003-07-29 11:14 ` Helge Hafting
2003-07-29 16:19 ` Jamie Lokier
2003-07-30 7:11 ` Helge Hafting
2003-07-30 14:05 ` Jamie Lokier
2003-07-28 8:44 The Well-Factored 386 Rick A. Hohensee
2003-07-28 14:06 ` David S. Miller
2003-07-28 16:36 ` hp
2003-07-28 20:33 ` Rick A. Hohensee
2003-07-28 20:33 ` David S. Miller
2003-07-28 22:27 ` Stephan von Krawczynski
2003-07-28 22:30 ` David S. Miller
2003-07-28 22:58 ` David D. Hagood
2003-07-29 14:32 ` Timothy Miller
2003-07-29 17:21 ` hp
2003-07-29 0:34 ` jw schultz
2003-07-29 1:27 ` Alan Cox
2003-07-29 3:49 ` Larry McVoy
2003-07-29 4:25 ` Gene Heskett
2003-07-29 4:42 ` jw schultz
2003-07-29 12:04 ` Alan Cox
2003-07-29 14:55 ` Timothy Miller
2003-07-29 8:45 ` hp
2003-07-28 23:11 ` viro
2003-07-29 0:17 ` Brian Raiter
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