Re: [PATCH 0/8] cpufreq: Auto-register with energy model

[Lukasz Luba]

On 8/10/21 10:27 AM, Viresh Kumar wrote:
> On 10-08-21, 10:17, Lukasz Luba wrote:
> > Hi Viresh,
> >
> > I like the idea, only small comments here in the cover letter.
> >
> > On 8/10/21 8:36 AM, Viresh Kumar wrote:
> > > Provide a cpufreq driver flag so drivers can ask the cpufreq core to register
> > > with the EM core on their behalf. This allows us to get rid of duplicated code
> > > in the drivers and fix the unregistration part as well, which none of the
> > > drivers have done until now.
> >
> > The EM is never freed for CPUs by design. The unregister function was
> > introduced for devfreq devices.
>
> I see. So if a cpufreq driver unregisters and registers again, it will
> be required to use the entries created by the registration itself,
> right ? Technically speaking, it is better to unregister and free any
> related resources and parse everything again.
>
> Lets say, just for fun, I want to test two copies of a cpufreq driver

It's good that it's just for fun ;)

> (providing different set of freq-tables). I build both of them as
> modules, insert the first version, remove it, insert the second one.
> Ideally, this should just work as expected. But I don't think it will
> in this case as you never parse the EM stuff again.

The EM is directly used by scheduler in the hot-path, there are no
checks even if the EM if for CPUs. We are sure it's is for CPUs and
is always there for all CPUs.

I'm currently working on a EM v2 which would have stronger mechanisms
and do better job in this field. The patches are under internal review
and hopefully ready to post by the end of month.

> Again, since the routine is there already, I think it is better/fine
> to just use it.

True, it doesn't harm, so I commented it in the patch 1/8 that it
could stay.

> > > This would also make the registration with EM core to happen only after policy
> > > is fully initialized, and the EM core can do other stuff from in there, like
> > > marking frequencies as inefficient (WIP). Though this patchset is useful without
> > > that work being done and should be merged nevertheless.
> > >
> > > This doesn't update scmi cpufreq driver for now as it is a special case and need
> > > to be handled differently. Though we can make it work with this if required.
> >
> > The scmi cpufreq driver uses direct EM API, which provides flexibility
> > and should stay as is.
>
> Right, so I left it as is for now.