On Wed Aug 11 2010 at 17:46:07 +0100, David Laight wrote: > > Use kpause() instead of DELAY() and sleep a minimum of 1 tick. > > This is possible now since softints have a thread context. It's > > also not a very frequent code path. Addresses ABI issue with delay > > (kern/40505). > > 1) How many copies of this function can actually run at the same time ? > 2) How many kernel threads are available for softints ?? > 3) How many other places might kernel threads sleep for timeout ??? > > It might be that they will all get stuck! > > Actually, although kernel worker threads can sleep, in general they > shouldn't do so unless they are just waiting for locks and similar > short duration sleeps. > I remember seeing solaris systems stuck when more than 1 (or a few) > drivers slept in the kernel threads.
What exactly is your point? Are you saying sleeping is worse than a busyloop?