McKenney: So You Want to Rust the Linux Kernel? [LWN.net]

McKenney: So You Want to Rust the Linux Kernel?

Posted Oct 4, 2021 7:51 UTC (Mon) by LtWorf (subscriber, #124958)
In reply to: McKenney: So You Want to Rust the Linux Kernel? by scientes
Parent article: McKenney: So You Want to Rust the Linux Kernel?

Isn't that what makes microkernels slow?

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McKenney: So You Want to Rust the Linux Kernel?

Posted Oct 4, 2021 9:10 UTC (Mon) by ehiggs (guest, #90713) [Link] (1 responses)

If I understand correctly the alleged slowness in microkernels comes from interprocess communication. However, I think the memory model and what scientes is referring to is std::sync::mpsc[1] or crossbeam::channel[2] which are in-process channel primitives to synchronize memory.

That said, I think the functionality of these primitives depends on having a stable memory model to build on, so I'm not sure hand waving it away saying 'message passing' works here.

[1] https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/sync/mpsc/
[2] https://docs.rs/crossbeam/0.7.3/crossbeam/channel/index.html

McKenney: So You Want to Rust the Linux Kernel?

Posted Oct 4, 2021 11:40 UTC (Mon) by ehiggs (guest, #90713) [Link]

Oh jeeze, I reread scientes post and they explicitly say IPC. How do I delete pre-coffee posts?

McKenney: So You Want to Rust the Linux Kernel?

Posted Oct 7, 2021 6:50 UTC (Thu) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link] (3 responses)

Some have said that what made microkernels slow was moral depravity. I don't know any way to prove them wrong.

But, is MacOSix slow?

McKenney: So You Want to Rust the Linux Kernel?

Posted Oct 7, 2021 9:43 UTC (Thu) by LtWorf (subscriber, #124958) [Link] (2 responses)

AFAIK it's not a microkernel, so how it performs doesn't really matter.

McKenney: So You Want to Rust the Linux Kernel?

Posted Oct 9, 2021 4:43 UTC (Sat) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link] (1 responses)

Last I heard, MacOSix was made out of a Mach microkernel running a FreeBSD-based personality as a process under the Mach microkernel.

McKenney: So You Want to Rust the Linux Kernel?

Posted Oct 9, 2021 6:37 UTC (Sat) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

It started as a microkernel, but ended up pretty much like NT with lots of stuff inside the kernel (filesystems, graphics, network, etc.)