Java Threads in the Solaris Environment -- Earlier Releases*

Previous to Java on Solaris 2.6 software, the Java runtime used a user-level threads library called "green threads," part of the Java runtime thread and system support layer. Because the green threads library was user-level and the Solaris system could process only one green thread at a time, Solaris handled the Java runtime as a many-to-one threading implementation (refer to "Many-to-One Model (Green Threads)"). As a result, several problems arose:

• Java applications could not interoperate with existing MT applications in the Solaris environment.

• Java threads could not run in parallel on multiprocessors.

• An MT Java application could not harness true OS concurrency for faster applications on either uniprocessors or multiprocessors.

To substantially increase application performance, the green threads library was replaced with native Solaris threads for Java on the Solaris 2.6 platform; this is carried forward on the Solaris 7 and Solaris 8 platforms.