=====================
Usage on Windows:
=====================
For once, Win32 thread prioritazion scheme is actually a good one, and
it works. :) Windows users, feel yourself as VIP citizens!!
-------------------
Windows / MSYS:
-------------------
On MSYS, 'stderr' output seems to be buffered. You might want to make
it auto-flush, to help you track & debug your scripts. Like this:
io.stderr:setvbuf "no"
Even after this, MSYS insists on linewise buffering; it will flush at
each newline only.
===================
Usage on Linux:
===================
Linux NTPL 2.5 (Ubuntu 7.04) was used in the testing of Lua Lanes.
This document (http://www.icir.org/gregor/tools/pthread-scheduling.html)
describes fairly well, what (all) is wrong with Linux threading, even today.
For other worthy links:
http://kerneltrap.org/node/6080http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_POSIX_Thread_Library
In short, you cannot use thread prioritation in Linux. Unless you run as
root, and I _truly_ would not recommend that. Lobby for yet-another thread
implementation for Linux, and mail -> akauppi@gmail.com about it. :)
CAVEAT: Anyone sufficiently knowledgeable with pthread scheduling is free to
contact me bnt DOT germain AT gmail DOT com) with a suitable edit
if this no longer applies on more recent kernels.
======================
Usage on Mac OS X:
======================
No real problems in OS X, _once_ everything is set up right...
In short, have your Lua core compiled with LUA_USE_DLOPEN and LUA_USE_POSIX
instead of the (default as of 5.1) LUA_DL_DYLD and LUA_USE_MACOSX. This is
crucial to have each module loaded only once (even if initialized separately
for each thread) and for the static & global variables within the modules to
actually be process-wide. Lua Lanes cannot live without...
Lua 5.2 is fine in that regard (check luaconf.h to be safe).
Another issue is making sure you only have _one_ Lua core. Your 'lua' binary
must link dynamically to a .dylib, it must _not_ carry a personal copy of Lua
core with itself. If it does, you will gain many mysterious malloc errors
when entering multithreading realm.
<<
lua-xcode2(9473,0xa000ed88) malloc: *** Deallocation of a pointer not malloced: 0xe9fc0; This could be a double free(), or free() called with the middle of an allocated block; Try setting environment variable MallocHelp to see tools to help debug
<<
rm lua.o luac.o
gcc -dynamiclib -install_name /usr/local/lib/liblua.5.1.dylib \
-compatibility_version 5.1 -current_version 5.1.2 \
-o liblua.5.1.2.dylib *.o
gcc -fno-common -DLUA_USE_POSIX -DLUA_USE_DLOPEN -DLUA_USE_READLINE -lreadline -L. -llua.5.1.2 lua.c -o lua
That should be it. :)
Fink 'lua51' packaging has the necessary changes since 5.1.2-3.
=====================
Usage on FreeBSD:
=====================
Unlike in Linux, also the Lua engine used with Lanes needs to be compiled with
'-lpthread'. Otherwise, the following malloc errors are received:
<<
lua in free(): warning: recursive call
PANIC: unprotected error in call to Lua API (not enough memory)
<<
Here are the Lua compilation steps that proved to work (FreeBSD 6.2 i386):
gmake freebsd
rm lua.o luac.o liblua.a
gcc -shared -lm -Wl,-E -o liblua.5.1.2.so *.o
gcc -O2 -Wall -DLUA_USE_LINUX -lm -Wl,-E -lpthread -lreadline -L. -llua.5.1.2 lua.c -o lua
To compile Lanes, use 'gmake' or simply:
cc -O2 -Wall -llua.5.1.2 -lpthread -shared -o out/bsd-x86/lua51-lanes.so \
-DGLUA_LUA51 gluax.c lanes.c
To place Lua into ~/local, set the following environment variables (this is
just a reminder for myself...):
export CPATH=.../local/include
export LIBRARY_PATH=.../local/lib
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=.../local/lib
=======================
Manual installation
=======================
After running GNU make, in directory `src` you will find files
`lanes.lua` and `lanes/core.so`. The first goes into a directory on
your LUA_PATH, and the `lanes` directory goes into a directory on your
LUA_CPATH. If you are not sure how this works, try creating
/usr/local/share/lua/5.1/lanes.lua
/usr/local/lib/lua/5.1/lanes/core.so
=======================
Note about LuaJIT
=======================
By default LuaJIT2 provides an non-thread-safe memory allocator to improve performance.
Of course this will break when running several Lua states concurrently.
Don't forget to initialize Lanes with the 'protect_allocator' option (see documentation)
if you experience random crash issues.
(end)