Newsgroups: comp.os.mach
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!watmath!dmason
From: dmason@msg.uwaterloo.ca (Dave Mason)
Subject: Re: Threads, Definition of
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: 6 Feb 91 20:16:52
Message-ID: <DMASON.91Feb6203244@watmsg.msg.uwaterloo.ca>
In-Reply-To: cs4213@umbc5.umbc.edu's message of 6 Feb 91 20:29:49 GMT
References: <4964@umbc3.UMBC.EDU>
Sender: daemon@watmath.waterloo.edu (0000-Admin(0000))
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In article <4964@umbc3.UMBC.EDU> cs4213@umbc5.umbc.edu (cs4213) writes:

>   Can anyoneoffer a succinct definition of threads aka lightweight
> processes???  Citations will be met with gratitude, terse, lucid explanations
> with fawning adoration.

As I'm supposed to be working on a paper about this at this very
moment, rather than reading news (-:

Lightweight processes are processes that share an address space.

The implications, ramifications and implementations of this vary
wildly.  Implementations of lwp's on Unix systems vary from Sun lwp's
and the uSystem where several lwp's share a Unix process and the
operating system knows nothing of their existence, through Mach
threads which are almost as lightweight as they can get with the
operating system knowing about them, up to systems where lwp's are
effectively full Unix processes which have mapped a common area of
memory to work with.

	../Dave