On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 03:09:16PM +0100, Leon Woestenberg wrote: > Hello, > > On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 3:25 PM, Peter Teoh <htmldeveloper@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > An incredible good technical article: > > > > http://lwn.net/Articles/305782/ > > > > May be someone would like to summarize it in 3 or 4 sentences? > > > Uhh, impossible. My lousy attempt, I have CC: Paul as the designer and author: > > Read-copy update (RCU) is a novel synchronization mechanism added to > the Linux kernel that allows readers to execute concurrently with > writers. The classic RCU mechanism scales well up to systems with > hundreds of processors, but does not scale well to emerging larger > multi-core systems as there is a global lock involved that must be > acquired by each CPU. Also, CPUs are woken up regularly, even if they > sit idle. A new hierarchical implementation of RCU reduces lock > contention and avoids unnecessarily awakening sleeping CPUs. Design by > Paul McKenney. Well done! I doubt that I could do better in 3-4 sentences. The best introduction to RCU that I know of is the three-part LWN series: http://lwn.net/Articles/262464/ (What is RCU, Fundamentally?) http://lwn.net/Articles/263130/ (What is RCU's Usage?) http://lwn.net/Articles/264090/ (What is RCU's API?) Although this series is a great improvement over earlier documentation, I am sure that there is ample room for further improvement, and would welcome thoughts on its shortcomings and on how it could be improved. Thanx, Paul -- To unsubscribe from this list: send an email with "unsubscribe kernelnewbies" to ecartis@xxxxxxxxxxxx Please read the FAQ at http://kernelnewbies.org/FAQ
