Re: [pull request] getting rid of __cpuinit

From: Sam Ravnborg
Date: Sat Oct 25 2008 - 17:37:59 EST


> > > I tried to look a the numbers of a defconfig build here.
> > > cpuinit.text equals 0x5d97 = 23959
> > > cpuinit.data equals 0x3574 = 13684
> > >
> > > [objdump of vmlinux.o gives you the size of the cpuinit sections]
> > >
> > > So if we decide to drop cpuinit then it should be based on the
> > > above figure and not the 2k figure you gave in the original mail.
> > >
> > > Or even better we should see the difference with a typical
> > > embedded configuration and not some big defconfig build.
> > > I will assume the saving is less on a typical embedded
> > > configuration.
> >
> > it will be; on x86 you end up inheriting all cpu vendors init code.
> > on embedded you only have the dedicated CPU code.
> >
> > ... just that on x86... nobody seems to be in this position, it's
> > almost impossble to have HOTPLUG_CPU even be asked.
>
> FWIW, I like the idea of removing __cpuinit. It often is quite difficult to
> determine if given piece of code should be marked as __cpuinit and that leads
> to bugs that are not so easy to resolve.

Getting rid of __cpuinit would be good - I do not questions this.
I only want the decision to be taken based on the correct numbers,
which Arjan failed to provide initially.

I decided to try to build a typical arm target - netwinder.
It had HOTPLUG disabled which is why I took this one.

objdump -h a/vmlinux.o | grep cpu
4 .cpuinit.text 000006ac 00000000 00000000 0023e3e4 2**2
41 .cpuinit.data 00000040 00000000 00000000 002c31a8 2**2

objdump -h a/vmlinux.o | grep text
0 .text 00227b44 00000000 00000000 00000040 2**5
1 .text.head 00000240 00000000 00000000 00227ba0 2**5
2 .init.text 000150b0 00000000 00000000 00227de0 2**5
4 .cpuinit.text 000006ac 00000000 00000000 0023e3e4 2**2
7 .devinit.text 00005c24 00000000 00000000 0023f78c 2**2
9 .exit.text 00001124 00000000 00000000 002453e4 2**2
11 .meminit.text 000002d4 00000000 00000000 002482b0 2**2
12 .devexit.text 00000348 00000000 00000000 00248584 2**2

So we see that for this config on arm we only save ~1700 bytes
by the cpuinit stuff. And for data we save even less.

__cpuinit is almost not used in arm specific code so what we
have here is the savings from the shared code.

Considering these numbers the gain/pain ratio is too low
and I agree that the cpuinit stuff should go.

The reports that removing cpuinit/exit stuff adds a new set
of warnings should just be looked at.
Except from the tricky __cpuinit cases it is almost always
trivial to fix when you have understood the problem.

Sam
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/