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Jeff Roberson Begins FreeBSD SMPng VFS Integration
A FreeBSD User writes "Jeff Roberson has announced that he has has begun integrating the Giant-lock free VFS code into the FreeBSD 6.x development tree. These changes will permit the UFS file system to run on multiple CPUs at a time on SMP systems (hyper-threaded, dual-core, or regular SMP), leading to substantially improved efficiency. It will also permit the VFS code to be fully preemptible on uni-processor systems, improving interrupt handling latency. With this change, almost all of the FreeBSD kernel is able to run fully threaded and in parallel on multiple CPUs with much less contention. He anticipates merging this work as an "opt-in" feature to the FreeBSD 5.x branch in the future. He indicates that the testing will be "opt-in", i.e., this change will not be fully enabled by default for the time being, and that it will take a while (a few hours) to complete the merge, so users of the 6-CURRENT branch may want to hold off updating for a few hours while he finishes the merge. The work was sponsored by Isilon Systems."
because -stable is *NOT* the place for potentially destructive changes. it is possible that after this change has sat in -current for a few months, and its rock solid, it might be backported. Don't hold your breath though.
In any case, if there is to be a FreeBSD 6.0 someday, it will probably look like Dragonfly. [dragonflybsd.org] I would say that future is now. Dragonfly 1.0 == FreeBSD 6.0
Pfft, what are you smoking? Dragonfly and FreeBSD 6 are going to be nothing alike. FreeBSD 6x is basically a simple evolutionary step away from 5x and as such any fundamental design problems will remain. Dragonfly 1.0 is not really a complete OS so I'm not sure how you can compair it. Dragonfly is taking the 4x branch in a radically different direction and will probably be it's own different flavor within the next 2 years. That's basically like saying FreeBSD 6 == NetBSD 2.2 - the two aren't really similar enough to compair in such a fashion.
All the *BSD are trying to catch-up on the number of Linux kernel exploits, but so far they failing miserably. I, as a proud BSD user, DEMAND that I have the same excitement and the same feeling of clear and present danger that every Linux users experience on a daily basis. Oh man, it's sooooo booooring to have BSD boxen that just runs, and runs, and runs doing what it's supposed to do.
I also think FreeBSD shot themselves in the foot by going with the MxN threading model, which sounds great in theory but's a real devil to get implemented to the point where it's correct and useful.
Your kinda missing the point here. FreeBSD has got it implemented to the point where its correct and useful. Having done it kind of nullifies it the disadvantage of it being hard to do.
"XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, use more." - Anonymous Coward
I did try DragonFly, and basically found it to be 4x with a kick ass installer. I also found that a fair number of ports were broken, and I don't think hacking stuff together to get it to compile is a good solution. I also found a fair number of system utilities were broken (sockstat comes to mind), and got all sorts of crazy error messages in the system logs.
I think the DragonFly team will do awsome things in the years to come, but there's a lot of work to do - the scope of the changes will be pretty large. DragonFly will really get off the ground once they make a clean break and import things from FreeBSD instead of the current method that comes across more like using FreeBSD as a crutch.
And the sooner the other BSD's start using DragonFly's installer, the better.
I am yet to see any concrete evidence that DragonFly is currently any better then FreeBSD in terms of performance, or anything for that matter.
I believe that the greatest saying I have ever heard is "put up or shut up." DragonFlyBSD has not done this yet. Until a solid, QUANTITATIVE benchmark between FreeBSD and DragonFly has been made, every claim about DragonFlyBSD's success is premature, and a waste of people's time.
Don't tell me that it's 10% faster. Show me. Show me this earth-changing code in action. I want proof, not an ad campaign.
None of your links refer to DragonFlyBSD, which is what I was referring to.
And at that its 2 processor scaling is something like 60%
Link please.