On Thu, 28 Feb 2002 sridhar@ufl.edu wrote: > I was reading Tigran's 2.4 kernel docs about SMP boot up. I am interested in > knowing the diff between an kernel thread and idle thread.what exactly is an > idle thread? y do the APs need to have an idle thread associated with them? also > please explain a bit about trampoline.s > I am not subscribed , so email me. an idle thread is exactly that, a thread which gets executed when the processor is idle. Whilst a kernel thread is a "process" running in kernel (read priveleged) context, check out the linux/drivers/net/8139too.c to see a network driver which uses kernel threads. To fully understand trampoline.S you'll have to read the Intel Multiprocessor Specification 1.x. In a nutshell it is code which the APs execute in order to get initialised and ready to run kernel code. Regards, Zwane -- Kernelnewbies: Help each other learn about the Linux kernel. Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/kernelnewbies/ IRC Channel: irc.openprojects.net / #kernelnewbies Web Page: http://www.kernelnewbies.org/
