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Open Kernel Labs Blog
November 21, 2007
Do Microkernels Suck?
Melbourne 2008
28 Jan – 02 Feb
At the 2007 OLS, Christoph Lameter presented a talk titled “Extreme High Performance Computing or Why Microkernels Suck”. Having more than a passing interest in microkernels, and having deployed one in a few (dozen? hundred?) million mobile phones, I found this somewhat intriguing, and started to analyse the argumentation.
I would like to share the result with the LCA community, to help people make up their own mind. In a nutshell, I think Christoph’s work is a great contribution to Linux scalability, but knowing Linux doesn’t mean you know understand microkernels. In fact, I will show that the paper is, as far as microkernels are concerned, essentially based on folklore rather than fact, and fails to provide any solid evidence for its assertions. Rather than starting a flame war, I will present and examine the facts, and discuss what conclusions can be drawn from them.
Project: Linux/microkernels
Posted by Gernot Heiser on November 21 at 08:31 AM
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About Gernot Heiser:
Gernot Heiser, Co-founder and Consulting Scientist, never thought he would be in the business world. Prior to NICTA's creation in 2003, Dr Heiser was a full-time faculty member at the University of New South Wales. However, this die-hard academic couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see the commercialization of this research. Gernot still loves teaching, almost as much as he loves good wine and good food. And anyone will tell you that Gernot knows his wine.