Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Mon, 10 Feb 2003 10:28:48 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Mon, 10 Feb 2003 10:28:48 -0500 Received: from smtp04.iprimus.com.au ([210.50.76.52]:31497 "EHLO smtp04.iprimus.com.au") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Mon, 10 Feb 2003 10:28:47 -0500 Message-ID: <001501c2d11a$3ad9c3a0$59951ad3@windows> From: "James Buchanan" To: Subject: SMP-Linux Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2003 02:36:48 +1100 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1106 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1106 X-OriginalArrivalTime: 10 Feb 2003 15:38:31.0087 (UTC) FILETIME=[76B73BF0:01C2D11A] Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1617 Lines: 37 Hello List, I am new to this so please forgive this post if it seems stupid. 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? 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. Is this an interesting idea to anyone? I expect it has been thought of before, but maybe it needs a hell of a lot of research to even begin thinking about it seriously. If anyone is interesting in really thrashing this out off list (or on list, but is this considered bad netiquette?), please mail me. I am very interested in discussing this in horrid detail :-) When I buy my SMP system, I plan to hack in the first stages of such "VSMP" support if it's feasible. Again, I don't really know what I'm doing so please go easy on me :-) I am still in the early stages of soaking up the stuff in the Intel CPU programming manuals. Thanks! James - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/