QLin=F8nut= screen shots 10743

Well, not exactly. There have been user-space thread implementations, but Linux invented a alternative route, where the LinuxThreads library used the clone() system call to make threads that were essentially processes that shared memory. Kernel-level scheduling, along with greatly increased flexibility.

Definitely after NT, you're right there. But well before 1998, which is when businesses started really noticing Linux. And the support's been mature for a long time. One other reason that threads haven't been as important on Unix is because the kinds of problems that need thread solutions on other platforms have been solved in different ways on Unix:

I think the above is a bit overstated, but it's worth noting that Unix was (and is) able to achieve similar performance with better security using the richer IPC and shared-memory mechanisms it supports. An example in there is an X server:

"The X server, able to execute literally millions of ops-second, is not threaded; it uses a poll-select loop. Various efforts to make a mulbreasthreaded implementation have come to no good result. The costs of locking and unlocking get too high for something as performance- sensitive as graphics servers." -- Jim Gettys

-- Sincerely,

Ray Ingles (313) 227-2317

"Suffering is good for the soul, but it is usually best to wait until the body has no choice in the matter." - Stephen Donaldson