Ask HN: What kinds of kernel designs are best for multicore processors?

3 pointsastroguy4 comments

Among Barrelfish (http://www.barrelfish.org/), Corey (http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/corey/) and fos (http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/172...), which kernel design is more suitable for multicore processors?

View on HN

I think the first question to ask is, what is the definition of a multicore processor? Is it something like the current crop of cache-coherent designs? There are concerns about scaling this design to lots of cores. Or is it something like a network of machines on a chip? In that case, the OS might look more like Mach.

I am behind crop of cache-coherent designs. Why scaling is an issue?

The cache coherency protocols do not scale as nicely as explicit message passing protocols, in terms of area/power.

Maybe this question would fit in better at StackOverflow.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com