KernelTrap.com: Robert Love's Preemptible Linux Kernel Work

Oct 14, 2001, 13:14 (15 Talkback[s])
(Other stories by Jeremy Andrews)

Robert Love: Right now most of my time is going into maintaining the preemptible kernel patch . This patch allows a lower priority process to be preempted, even if operating in kernel space, resulting in improved system response. The patch was originally the work of MontaVista - a great company - so I am working closely with them and the rest of the community. It is a fun project. We are aiming for inclusion in 2.5.

I'm pretty random, otherwise.. I fix bugs, optimize, and clean cruft up. I wrote the i815 and AMD761 AGP GART code. I also maintain some other odds and end patches.

...The model we use is to allow the kernel to be preempted at any time when it is not locked. Under this design, when an event occurs that causes a higher priority task to become runnable, the system preempt the current task and run the higher priority task.

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