Re: ADA os talk

["chris.danx" <chris.danx@ntlworld.com>]

> Why not set a goal of a kernel that handles scheduling of processes &
tasks
> on from one to N processors? Presume that you have memory and some device
> from which the kernel can boot. Presume that it needs to execute at least
> one application (what ultimately becomes the API - maybe device drivers?)
in
> "privileged" mode.

On x86 this is ok for monolithic kernels but if it's real privileged mode in
a microkernel, then performance will take a hit.  If you fake privileged
mode and run things in "user mode" with a user level IPC, then the hit will
be much less.  Check out L4 for info on it.  Note that on other systems, the
hit of the context switch (which are more frequent in microkernels) is not
so bad and this scheme may not be necessary.


Chris