3 ms·
Lots of myths around microkernel "slowness"[0]. >And yes, context switches matter a lot too. seL4 is significantly (100x-1000x) faster than Linux at context s
by snvzz 3y ago
Lots of myths around microkernel "slowness"[0].
>And yes, context switches matter a lot too.
seL4 is significantly (100x-1000x) faster than Linux at context switching[1]. At the same time, it does not require that many more context switches.
0. https://archive.is/30hhi https://archive.is/30hhi
1. https://sel4.systems/About/Performance/ https://sel4.systems/About/Performance/
- kramerger 3y agoThis is a very unfair comparison 1. A sel4 context switch does significantly less than a Linux ditto. It saves fewer hardware registers etc 2. You will need many more context switches to achieve the same thing in a microkernel due to its distributed architecture. 3. A lot of "complexity" in the kernel is simply performance optimization that does not exist in sel4. Back in the days Minix and Hurd promised to achieve optimization by replacing generic servers with custom ones but I haven't seen this actually working in 20 years