> On 29-Oct-99 Dale R Worley wrote:
> > Perhaps a patch is needed so APM (or the user) can inform the kernel
> > to recompute bogomips, or to recompute them once a minute or so?
>
> Bogomips calculation is pretty slow and CPU consuming. The basic problem is
> that the premise, the CPU always runs at the same rate, is flawed. The
> solution is to find some other timebase.
This is a result of all current CPUs being synchronous designs. There is
very promising research work about asynchronous processor designs. One of
the key properties is that these processors don't have a processor speed that
is exactly defined by the frequency of an oscilator but rather by the
temperature, production process used and many more. Even two chips that
were born on the same waver side by side may differ will probably differ
somewhat. They use significantly less power, so they'll probably be used
in battery powered devices like laptops first.
As for the current APM problem - if I remember APM right it can notify the
application of certain events. That could be used to make recomputing
BogoMIPS a rare event.
Ralf
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