K 10
svn:author
V 2
jb
K 8
svn:date
V 27
1998-09-30T06:36:56.000000Z
K 7
svn:log
V 713
Move the cleanup code that frees memory allocated for a dead thread from
the thread kernel into a garbage collector thread which is started when
the fisrt thread is created (other than the initial thread). This
removes the window of opportunity where a context switch will cause a
thread that has locked the malloc spinlock, to enter the thread kernel,
find there is a dead thread and try to free memory, therefore trying
to lock the malloc spinlock against itself.

The garbage collector thread acts just like any other thread, so
instead of having a spinlock to control accesses to the dead thread
list, it uses a mutex and a condition variable so that it can happily
wait to be signalled when a thread exists.

END