Re: Re: Speed up Linux Development Cycle By Using a Simulator

Rayson Ho (ut_bookstore@yahoo.com)
Fri, 9 Apr 1999 16:16:04 -0700 (PDT)


I think VMWare uses the same method as WINE -- most
of the instructions execute natively on the processor.
The only instant VMWare/WINE gains control is when the
application/guest OS needs to do I/O or other kernel
calls. So VMWare or WINE is just a middleman but it
also simulates the environment that the program (or
even a guest kernel in the case of VMWare) used to be
in.

I think that WMWare knows anything about cache miss
nor it cares about it. However, the performance of
modern systems depends greatly on the performance of
the cache. If there are a lot of cache misses, then no
matter what speed your processor runs, memory access
time burns all your processor cycles.

Besides, there are a lot of issues. For example, the
network performance. Page replacement algorithms, etc.
They too, greatly affects the performance. Rather than
spending time optimizing the whole kernel, why do we
spend most of our effort on the slowest part of it?


> Not sure what the difference between a machine
> simulator and a virtual
> machine are, but VMWare has released a VM package
> that will run on Linux
> (as well as other platforms). You can install NT,
> Linux, Windows 95/98,
> whatever, in the VM. Is that what you were thinking
> of?

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