Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!bu.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!cs.utexas.edu!texbell!ficc!peter From: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.os.minix Subject: Re: Assorted questions Message-ID: Date: 18 Jul 90 16:49:26 GMT References: <877@sce.carleton.ca> <628@philica.ica.philips.nl> Reply-To: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Organization: Xenix Support, FICC Lines: 13 > > Now for my final question: are there any real advantages to structuring > >an OS as a collection of co-operating tasks as in Minix? As in MINIX? I don't know. Other operating systems that use multiple co-operating tasks in the kernel use asynchronous message queues to communicate between those tasks rather than a synchronous rendezvous. This reduces the opportunities for deadlock as well as making it easier to service simultaneous requests (for example, the FS can make a request from the disk driver on behalf of one task, and then immediately go on to service the next task. When the disk driver replies to the first message it can forward the data to the original task, or whatever. The disk driver can similarly queue and prioritise requests. If the FS had to wait for the driver before continuing this wouldn't be possible). -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' +1 713 274 5180.