USENIX Technical Program - Abstract - USENIX 99
pk: A POSIX Threads Kernel
Frank W. Miller, Cornfed Systems, Inc.
Abstract
pk is a new operating system kernel targeted for use
in real-time and embedded applications. There are
two novel aspects to the pk design:
- Documentation: The kernel is documented using
literate programming techniques and the
noweb tool in particular.
- POSIX Threads with Memory Protection: The
concurrency model is based on the POSIX
Threads (aka Pthreads) standard, however,
the kernel also provides page-based memory
protection using Memory Management
Unit (MMU) hardware.
This short paper discusses these facets of the pk kernel
project. The use of literate programming is presented rst, followed by a brief description of some
of the pk design issues.
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