how is malloc/free done in SMP linux

[H.J. Lu]

> 
> Sir;
> 
> i am beginning development of a CAD like program. it will be
> threaded and multi-processor capable (well thanks to SMP O/S
> like linux).
> 
> as to the linux's memory management, suppose a program has
> 30 threads. each thread is allocating and deallocating memory.
> 
> does linux block the other 29 threads when thread <X> wants
> to malloc/free? how about other threads/processes in the process
> table? 
> 
> in a regular, single-processor system, my original C++ program
> spent 50% of its time in malloc/free. i reduced this time very
> significantly by implementing memory pools. the basic algorithm is fairly
> easy to split up across threads. hence linux SMP for more performance.
> but i am wondering if i might be walking into a "technical snare"
> with respect to linux and memory management.
> 

This has little to do with kernel. I forwarded this to the glibc
mailing list.

-- 
H.J. Lu (hjl@gnu.org)