Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1758244Ab2JZKhM (ORCPT ); Fri, 26 Oct 2012 06:37:12 -0400 Received: from www.linutronix.de ([62.245.132.108]:33608 "EHLO Galois.linutronix.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1758111Ab2JZKhJ (ORCPT ); Fri, 26 Oct 2012 06:37:09 -0400 Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2012 12:36:49 +0200 (CEST) From: Thomas Gleixner To: Peter Zijlstra cc: Ingo Molnar , Linus Torvalds , Juri Lelli , mingo@redhat.com, rostedt@goodmis.org, oleg@redhat.com, fweisbec@gmail.com, darren@dvhart.com, johan.eker@ericsson.com, p.faure@akatech.ch, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, claudio@evidence.eu.com, michael@amarulasolutions.com, fchecconi@gmail.com, tommaso.cucinotta@sssup.it, nicola.manica@disi.unitn.it, luca.abeni@unitn.it, dhaval.giani@gmail.com, hgu1972@gmail.com, paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com, raistlin@linux.it, insop.song@ericsson.com, liming.wang@windriver.com, jkacur@redhat.com, harald.gustafsson@ericsson.com, vincent.guittot@linaro.org, Andrew Morton Subject: Re: [PATCH 01/16] math128: Introduce various 128bit primitives In-Reply-To: <1351245264.16863.12.camel@twins> Message-ID: References: <1351115634-8420-1-git-send-email-juri.lelli@gmail.com> <1351115634-8420-2-git-send-email-juri.lelli@gmail.com> <1351172849.12171.10.camel@twins> <1351241389.12171.45.camel@twins> <20121026092421.GB628@gmail.com> <1351244130.16863.7.camel@twins> <20121026094207.GA2179@gmail.com> <1351245264.16863.12.camel@twins> User-Agent: Alpine 2.02 (LFD 1266 2009-07-14) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Linutronix-Spam-Score: -1.0 X-Linutronix-Spam-Level: - X-Linutronix-Spam-Status: No , -1.0 points, 5.0 required, ALL_TRUSTED=-1,SHORTCIRCUIT=-0.0001 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2218 Lines: 58 On Fri, 26 Oct 2012, Peter Zijlstra wrote: > On Fri, 2012-10-26 at 11:42 +0200, Ingo Molnar wrote: > > * Peter Zijlstra wrote: > > > > > On Fri, 2012-10-26 at 11:24 +0200, Ingo Molnar wrote: > > > > > > > So can we control this by restricting the users and avoiding > > > > the overflow? > > > > > > > > A 2^64 result should be a *huge* amount of space already for > > > > just about anything. > > > > > > I _think_ something like: dl_runtime * dl_deadline < U64_MAX, > > > might do that. The question is, is this constraint usable? > > > Simplified that boils down to about 4 seconds each, which > > > sounds pretty much ok for most people -- but such statements > > > usually come back to bite you (640kb anybody...). > > > > We could constrain the precision, not the maximum value. > > > > Having a 4 seconds hard limit is one thing, only having 10 nsecs > > precision at 40 seconds is another. > > That gets to be rather ugly I think.. for one it might surprise people, > secondly you get to have a bunch of conditionals and shifts in that code > path. > > Personally I'd prefer to do the simple thing, esp. for a new interface. > So either do the hard limit or the u128 thing. > > If we go with the hard limit, we can always address things when people > run into it and complain, at such a time we also have a better view of > people's uses and expectations methinks. By all means. nsec precision is a completly academic thought exercise. It's really pointless to even think about anything below microseconds resolution. We can still have the user space interface handing in the information in nsec resolution, but it's reasonable to scale it down to something useful. Just shift the incoming information right by 10, so you're in the 1us resolution for all the internal math and all your limitation problems are gone. A shift by ten for converting back and forth to nsecs is not a real performance issue. Thanks, tglx -- 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/