Threads

Dan Kegel dank at alumni.caltech.edu
Wed Nov 1 15:48:32 PST 2000


Jim Kingdon wrote:
> At the recent open source database summit[1], I asked the developers
> there whether people had problems with threads on Linux.
> 
> The answer I got was that the semantic differences from POSIX weren't
> really a problem, but they really, really wanted better debugging.

>From my own experience writing a threaded app that runs under
both Linux and Solaris, that's exactly right.

> Monty (of MySQL) also suggested a few additions to our libpthread.txt
> file: the threads code in libc usurps SIGUSR1 and SIGUSR2, and dumping
> core only affects a thread, not the whole process.  

> <PARA>
> The semantics of system calls do not follow the pthread behavior. This is
> the result of using clone() instead of lightweight processes. A complete list
> of differences is not yet available, so applications are discouraged from
> using pthreads.
> </PARA>

That's a bit harsh.  Why should the LSB discourage apps from using pthreads?
Is it because it's too hard to list the things that must be obeyed 
to have a pthread app that is portable to both Linux and other OS's?  
I must be missing something.
Is it just that I'm thinking at the source-code level, not at the
installing-binary-packages level?

- Dan




More information about the lsb-discuss mailing list