[MPlayer-dev-eng] Adding threaded functionality to mplayer NODAEMON

[Attila Kinali]

On Mon, Sep 13, 2004 at 10:42:25AM -0400, D Richard Felker III wrote:
 
> > A similar issue is debated on the kernel level; why should be try to
> > cache gigabytes from VOB files during playing and discard all the
> > things which can be useful in the future (libraries, config files,
> > tmp files,...). See madvise(MADV_DONTNEED)
> 
> yes but alas the kernel developers are too stupid to make this
> automatic (any linear read with no seeks should be considered for
> "dontneed" status).

I disagree here, they are not too stupid, but doing a good guess whether
an app will do a dontneed read or a read with a back seek sometime later
is not easy. Just have a look at the strugles around the scheduler to
make its decissions more intelligent. IMHO the app should tell the
kernel what kind of access it will do, not the kernel trying to guess
what the app does. This comes actualy down to the problem of an
application (in the broadest sense) that tries to be more intelligent
than the user (see also windows).


				Attila Kinali