Re: [PATCH] rcu: update: make RCU_EXPEDITE_BOOT default

From: Paul E. McKenney
Date: Thu Nov 03 2016 - 13:00:10 EST


On Thu, Nov 03, 2016 at 05:33:27PM +0100, Sebastian Andrzej Siewior wrote:
> On 2016-11-03 09:22:28 [-0700], Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> > On Wed, Nov 02, 2016 at 05:30:02PM +0100, Sebastian Andrzej Siewior wrote:
> > > RCU_EXPEDITE_BOOT should speed up the boot process by enforcing
> > > synchronize_rcu_expedited() instead of synchronize_rcu() during the boot
> > > process. There should be no reason why one does not want this and there
> > > is no need worry about real time latency at this point.
> > > Therefore make it default.
> > >
> > > Signed-off-by: Sebastian Andrzej Siewior <bigeasy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> >
> > Well, it has been awhile since I removed a Kconfig parameter.
> >
> > So why could this be a bad thing?
> >
> > 1. Very large systems might see scalability issues with unconditional
> > expediting at boot. But if we don't try it, we won't know.
>
> You mean we would make the boot process slower for them instead of
> faster?

For really bit systems, quite possibly, where "really big" means
many hundreds or (more likely) thousands of CPUs.

But there are things that I can do to fix this when and if.

> > 2. People bringing up new hardware might not want quite so many
> > IPIs. But they can just set rcu_normal to prevent that.
>
> I wanted to make things simple and not complicatedâ

I know that feeling. ;-)

> > I am therefore queuing it for testiong and review. ;-)
>
> Okay thanks.

Thanx, Paul

> Sebastian
>