Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261633AbTIOIR7 (ORCPT ); Mon, 15 Sep 2003 04:17:59 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261652AbTIOIR7 (ORCPT ); Mon, 15 Sep 2003 04:17:59 -0400 Received: from 81-2-122-30.bradfords.org.uk ([81.2.122.30]:56704 "EHLO 81-2-122-30.bradfords.org.uk") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261633AbTIOIR6 (ORCPT ); Mon, 15 Sep 2003 04:17:58 -0400 Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2003 09:31:44 +0100 From: John Bradford Message-Id: <200309150831.h8F8Vir6000839@81-2-122-30.bradfords.org.uk> To: alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk, john@grabjohn.com Subject: Re: [PATCH] 2.6 workaround for Athlon/Opteron prefetch errata Cc: davidsen@tmr.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, zwane@linuxpower.ca Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1504 Lines: 35 > > That's a non-issue. 300 bytes matters a lot on some systems. The > > fact that there are drivers that are bloated is nothing to do with > > it. > > Its kind of irrelevant when by saying "Athlon" you've added 128 byte > alignment to all the cache friendly structure padding. My intention is that we won't have done 128 byte alignments just by 'supporting' Athlons, only if we want to run fast on Athlons. A distribution kernel that is intended to boot on all CPUs needs workarounds for Athlon bugs, but it doesn't need 128 byte alignment. Obviously using such a kernel for anything other than getting a system up and running to compile a better kernel is a Bad Thing, but the distributions could supply separate Athlon, PIV, and 386 _optimised_ kernels. > There are systems > where memory matters, but spending a week chasing 300 bytes when you can > knock out 50K is a waste of everyones time. Do the 40K problems first The 'select a single CPU to support and/optimise for' -> 'select a bitmap of CPUs to support' work is being done anyway though, so this is more or less just one single IFDEF, which is more like a few seconds work, rather than a week. Also, a lot of the 40K problems are in drivers that embedded systems simply don't use. John. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/