Re: "Real" Multitasking (Re: GNO questions...)

[bazyar@teal.csn.org (Jawaid Bazyar)]

toddpw@cco.caltech.edu (Todd P. Whitesel) writes:

>Sorry. When I said cooperative multitasking I was not talking about pure
>coop like everyone's brain seems to click into when they hear the term. I
>meant that unix processes like daemons are expected to voluntarily give up
>control of the system in order to prevent undesirable things like high load
>averages. unix does not _rely_ on the daemons calling select, but the machine
>runs a lot more efficiently when they do.

  Hm.  Well, I should say that process blocking is a necessary function
of a preemptive system, or any multitasking system for that matter. It's
just plain sense, and can be implemented in either coop or preemptive systems.
I'd hardly say it's indicative of a cooperative thing.
  Well, it's something of a cooperative function, in that the daemons
"cooperate" to use less CPU time; but it's definitely not like MultiFinder's
mechanism (as you pointed out), where the system relies on a process
giving up control.

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