IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2012-07-05

<pinotree> braunr: wrt to mach: it seems to me it ticks every 10ms or so,
  it is true?
<braunr> yes
<braunr> and it's not preemptible

preemption.

<pinotree> braunr: that means a gnumach kernel currently has a maximum
  uptime of almost 500 days
<braunr> pinotree: what do you mean ?
<pinotree> there's an int (or uint, i don't remember) variable that keeps
  the tick count
<braunr> yes the tick variable should probably be a 64-bits type
<braunr> or a struct
<braunr> but the tick count should only be used for computation on "short"
  delays
<braunr> and it should be safe to use it even when it overflows
<braunr> it's not the wall clock
<pinotree> i found that when investigating why the maximum timeout for a
  mach_msg is like INT_MAX >> 2 (or 4) or something like that, also due to
  the tick count
<braunr> iirc, in linux, they mostly use the lower 32-bits on 32-bits
  architecture, updating the 32 upper only when necessary