Design for parallel processing

Hi all,

  I plan to use Prima as a front-end to build dedicated Linux systems. Apart
from configuration entry, Prima will stand there while the usual
configure/make/make install commands will happen, all launched by Prima.

  Without a GUI I'm doing something like:

   main program starts a make cycle like this:

- 1st thread prints to the screen a character each second and waits for a
shared varaible set by the second thread.

- 2nd thread launches the make cycle and when done (error or not) sets the
shared variable. Stdout is directed to null, error is redirected to a file
that will be shown if there's error.

  During that time the main program waits (i.e. join) on both threads.

  With Prima I'd like to have about the same behaviour. The character at each
second can be replaced by a revolving little graphic icon or somesuch.
There'll be a window showing the list of packages being compiled with an OK
for each. And a cancel button. Now, how is it possible to integrate the
parallel processing of the make cycles to the Prima GUI main loop ? Do you
have any suggestions and ideas ? The GUI should be responsive to the cancel
button and to animating the icon, but I presume it could do that as a low
priority, perhaps each 500 ms or even 1 sec.

  Thanks !

Al
Received on Wed 31 Aug 2005 - 13:07:26 CEST