[KLUG Members] ksoftirqd_CPU0 & ksoftirqd_CPU1

[Bryan-TheBS-Smith]

Adam Williams wrote:
> Running 2.4.13 through it's paces today and I noticed two processes:
> 3 root      19  19     0    0     0 SWN   0.0  0.0   0:00 ksoftirqd_CPU0
> 4 root      19  19     0    0     0 SWN   0.0  0.0   0:00 ksoftirqd_CPU1
> They've go to be kernel threads,  but I don't recall see-ing them around
> before.  Anybody have an idea what these guys are up to?

I think they were introduced with the VM changes in 2.4.5 or 2.4.6. 
I see them as well with 2.4.9-7, but didn't with 2.4.3-12.  Yes,
they are kernel daemons, presumably to track software interrupts on
each CPU.

Even though Linux is a non-microkernel design, it _is_ now (in 2.4)
threaded between processors -- i.e. each processor has its own
thread.  I read a recent interview where Linux was talking about
this.  The idea is that Linux 2.4 can now scale on multiple
processors without inheriting all the microkernel overhead.

-- theBS

-- 
Bryan "TheBS" Smith    mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org     chat:thebs413
Engineer   AbsoluteValue Systems, Inc.   http://www.linux-wlan.org
President     SmithConcepts, Inc.     http://www.SmithConcepts.com
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