Quoting "Donald Allen" <donaldcal...@gmail.com>: > My understanding is that OpenBSD still employs the Giant Lock approach > to SMP, serializing access to kernel services. Is this still true? If > it is, do Theo and the other kernel developers consider it a priority > to improve this? > > (I am NOT complaining. I completely understand that OpenBSD is a labor > of love and that development resources are limited and that doing SMP > right isn't easy. I'm simply trying to get an idea of whether this is > likely to be addressed in the near future or not.) > > /Don Allen
You have to keep in mind that thinking about race conditions and other possible problems took (and always take) precednece over "speed". Me, I find SMP systems to be fast--are other systems faster? Probably, but so what? Optimizing for anything other than security, reliability and being solid is foolish. I always tell people if OpenBSD isn't fast enough, they can get faster hardware. Things get faster with time, like pf. A couple (4?) versions ago pf got a fair amount faster. That was good, but happened only after people saw pf working and then thought of ways to optimize it. Thats the way it should be done -- make something *work* and then if optimizations don't interfere with the primary goals, apply them. --STeve Andre'
