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David, Your 'Linux Kernel' was posted to the SuSE listserv and I am working my way through it. Many thanks for all your work, it's been very valuable and not overly technical. I have a question. Throughout, you use task, process, light weight process, clone(), user thread and kernel thread interchangably - often together in the same sentence. This is probably because the whole concept of clone() is an amalgum of all these things - but any discussion of the technical side of Linux often comes down to putting clone() into familiar terms for others to understand who are more used to threaded OS and have no concept of clone() Can you give a thumbnail sketch of this issue - and perhaps make it clear in your text, that all these functionalities are distinct - and where Linux fits in the great scheme of multithreaded programming. Is there even such a thing on Linux or is it automatically non-process, non-threaded multicloned? Does it matter one whit? Surely this is a major porting issue because only Linux uses this method meaning it has to be hacked into the universe of apps that Linux needs so badly and affects driver development when hardware is an issue. (If your driver is bringing 96 ports of telephony out of a single PCI telephony board - it matters hugely to the stability of your system and the resources necessary whether you are bringing each port out as a process, a clone or a thread). Thanks! John Totten MD Sitka Alaska -- To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e