Re: [patch] remove the BKL (Big Kernel Lock), this time for real

From: Ingo Molnar
Date: Wed Sep 15 2004 - 11:09:54 EST



* Andi Kleen <ak@xxxxxx> wrote:

> Ingo Molnar <mingo@xxxxxxx> writes:
>
> > the attached patch is a new approach to get rid of Linux's Big Kernel
> > Lock as we know it today.
>
> Interesting approach. Did you measure what it does to context switch
> rates? Usually adding semaphores tends to increase them a lot.

not yet - i've coded it up today. Perhaps the lowlatency audio folks
(who are most interested in BKL-latency removal) could report some
numbers?

but as i've replied to Linus too, i believe that _if_ the context-switch
rate goes up then some piece of code uses the BKL way too often! So
having a semaphore here might in fact help fixing those rare cases.

> One minor comment only:
> Please CSE "current" manually. It generates much better code
> on some architectures because the compiler cannot do it for you.

yeah, agreed, will do.

Ingo
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