2 ms·
How did it achieve its speed? My understanding was that microkernel architectures were fundamentally slower than monolithic kernels because context switching is
by josephg 3y ago
How did it achieve its speed? My understanding was that microkernel architectures were fundamentally slower than monolithic kernels because context switching is slower than function calls. How did L4 manage to be the fastest?
- vacuity 3y agoTwo factors are the small working set (fit the code and data in cache) and heavily optimized IPC. The IPC in L4 kernels is "a context switch with benefits": in the best case, the arguments are placed in registers and the context is switched. Under real workloads, microkernels probably will be slower, but not by much.