Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Mon, 1 Oct 2001 17:33:49 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Mon, 1 Oct 2001 17:33:39 -0400 Received: from barry.mail.mindspring.net ([207.69.200.25]:2872 "EHLO barry.mail.mindspring.net") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Mon, 1 Oct 2001 17:33:22 -0400 Subject: Re: [PATCH][RFC] Allow net devices to contribute to /dev/random From: Robert Love To: Pavel Machek Cc: David Wagner , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org In-Reply-To: <20011001164354.A21715@bug.ucw.cz> In-Reply-To: <1001461026.9352.156.camel@phantasy> <9or70g$i59$1@abraham.cs.berkeley.edu> <1001465531.10701.61.camel@phantasy> <20011001164354.A21715@bug.ucw.cz> Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Evolution/0.14.99+cvs.2001.09.30.08.08 (Preview Release) Date: 01 Oct 2001 17:33:43 -0400 Message-Id: <1001972029.2277.41.camel@phantasy> Mime-Version: 1.0 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Mon, 2001-10-01 at 10:43, Pavel Machek wrote: > > Obviously the timer interrupt would be the worst idea ever. Its the > > same value (HZ) on almost all versions of Linux (Alpha being on example > > where it is not the same). > > Actually, not quite. On 2.4.9 system, console kept interrupts disabled > for so long that timer interrupt was pretty good source of randomness. That is pretty sad, to be honest :) Besides, on some systems interrupts may rarely be disabled -- its too hard to tell. We don't want another config option, do we? :) Also, 2.4.10 merged Andrew Morton's console-locking patch, so one can hope the console's latency is improved. -- Robert M. Love rml at ufl.edu rml at tech9.net - 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/