Great thought..., but once again Intel has broken it before you could even
try. The main problem with the multiprocessor argument is not just the
ring0 code (which is a real pain) it is also that SMP was designed with the
intention that you never know what process is running on which processor,
and thus the user level stuff doesn't know any "better" as to what it is
really doing at the hardware level. OH well, maybe later.......;^)
As for using a hard drive instead of a file, you have one MAJOR and
undeniable sticking point.....partition tables & hard drive access
permissions. In LINUX and other UNIX-like systems, you must mount a drive
manually. However, in many, many other systems, a hard drive partitions of
a matching type are AUTOMATICALLY mounted on boot. Thus you'd have two
systems writing to a filesystem that they can both see AT THE "HARDWARE"
LEVEL and there is no host, no master, no "in charge" system controlling
disk access. This leads to unbelievable data loss and other catastrophic
problems. If you'd like proof of this, set up a joint scsi bus between two
machines, format a partition on a drive as something that they can both
access as something that they can both access, and then make sure that they
can both mount the partition. Then try to write to the drive from both
machines simultaneously. The drive will become unrecoverably corrupted.
Granted, we wouldn't be trying to do exactly the same thing, but I think
that I made my point that the logistics of the issue of RAW disk access by
the guest are just way beyond what we would even want to consider right now.
Drew Northup, N1XIM
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf
> Of Calvin Smith
> Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2000 4:49 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: Thoughts. (multi processor)
>
>
> Your idea seems to be the same setup as just having a small linux
> install that only has plex86 installed. The difference is the ability
> to use hard drive directly instead of as a file. However, this could
> be added.
> I believe it would be better to focus on running the guest on a
> seperate processor than the host thereby allowing both guest and host
> to run without worrying if they are going to step on each other.
>
>
>
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