Re: [RFC] Wine speedup through kernel module

From: David Howells (David.Howells@nexor.co.uk)
Date: Fri Sep 08 2000 - 08:12:09 EST


torvalds@transmeta.com (Linus Torvalds) wrote:
> >I've done an implementation of some of the Win32 "system calls" in a kernel
> >module in an attempt to speed up Wine.
> Hmm.. I have this feeling that it would be much nicer to just implement
> the NT system calls directly.

Yes, perhaps, but as far as I know, the MS DDK doesn't describe the usage of
most of these calls, and there's precious little information elsewhere.

> And we've already had the vm86 mode and the BIOS trap stuff speedups for
> DOSEMU for a long time.
>
> It looks like if you want to do this, it would be better to just try to
> do it outright, and have the same kind of "emulate the ones we know
> about and care about performance" in the kernel that we already have
> with the vm86 mode emulation.

Would you also be willing to accept a couple of kernel extensions to help
support this:

 (1) A death-knell callback list to be placed in the task structure. Each
     function so listed (if any) would be invoked upon exit, signal-death or
     execve.

 (2) Some sort of support for (dynamically allocated) system calls implemented
     in modules.

Of course, some sort of file change notification system wouldn't go amiss
either.

> I wouldn't be adverse to supporting Wine better - as long as it's fairly
> cleanly separated. This doesn't look too bad.

Cheers. Yes, it's my intention to keep it as a module, at least for now. I
might need the odd extra symbol or two exporting from the kernel though.

David

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