Re: [patch 2/4] Expose Power Management Policy option to users

From: Tejun Heo
Date: Tue Jul 31 2007 - 14:03:25 EST


Kristen Carlson Accardi wrote:
> I think what you are saying is that you'd like a way to use your HIPM
> and DIPM without ALPM on the AHCI driver. Fine - it's really easy
> to add these levels later - if they don't make sense at the sysfs interface
> we can add module params to specify the definition of "min_power" as
> being performed via HIPM and DIPM instead of ALPM - although as of yet we
> have no evidence what so ever that this method actually adds value over
> ALPM.

I don't really care whose PS implementation goes in. Believe me. I try
to stay away from that. I don't even like my previous implementation.

ALPM has unnecessary performance penalty && is not applicable to
non-ahci controller. Have you tested ALPM on non-intel ahcis? There
are a lot out there these days.

I don't think the interface you're suggesting is a good one. Do you?

>> Also, I generally don't think AHCI ALPM is a good idea. It doesn't have
>> 'cool down' period before entering PS state which unnecessarily hampers
>> performance and might increase chance of device malfunction.
>
> "might increase"? How about some actual examples of where you've shown
> this to be a problem?

I wouldn't have used "might" if I had actual examples. Well, feel free
to disregard anything following the "might". I just feel uneasy about
jumping back and forth between PS and active states between consecutive
commands.

> I can assert that I think ALPM is a good idea,
> because I've never had a report of it causing problems. Windows has
> been using this feature for a very long time - and you have to admit that
> they have a pretty large market share. Nobody is complaining about ALPM
> increasing device malfunction, so unless you have proof it seems insane
> to nak due to this.

Is ALPM enabled by default? How do they deal with the performance
degradation?

--
tejun
-
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/