Superpages on amd64 FreeBSD 7.2-STABLE

[Linda Messerschmidt]

Also...

On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 9:50 AM, Bernd Walter <ticso at cicely7.cicely.de> wrote:
> I use fork myself, because it is easier sometimes, but people writing
> big programms such as squid should know better.
> If squid doesn't use vfork they likely have a reason.

Actually they are probably going to switch to vfork().  They were
previously not using it because they thought there was some ambiguity
about whether it was going to be around long term.

I actually am not a huge fan of vfork() since it stalls the parent
process until the child exec()'s.

To me, this case actually highlights why that's an issue.  If the
explanation is that stuff is happening in the parent process between
fork() and the child's exec() causes the fragmentation, that's stuff
that would be deferred in a vfork() regime, with unknown potential
consequences.  (At a minimum, decreased performance.)

But that's personal and largely uninformed opinion. :)