On Thu, Mar 02, 2000 at 08:20:49PM +0530, Joseph Bill wrote:
> Dear experts,
>
> Sorry to ask the following questions in this list. But I
> didn't have any options.
>
> 1. What is the difference between Multitasking and Context switching?
The same as the difference between having many hats and switching the hats.
> 2. What is the role of CPU w.r.t Multitasking and Context switching?
The CPU needs to take one hat off and put on the other. Seriously, have
you tried looking in any OS text book ?
> 3. I read somewhere that Intel processors are not good in context
> switching compared to other CPUs(Sparc, MIPS, etc). Is it true?
You'll have to give us a reference. It could be argued that Intel
CPUs are actually better, because they have fewer registers to save.
But they do have weaknesses - the TLB gets flushed on every context
switch. There are better ways to do this. IA-64 uses much better
techniques.
-Arun
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