Re: [PATCH 00/14] alpha: cleanups for 6.10

From: John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
Date: Mon Jun 03 2024 - 07:41:12 EST


Hi Maciej,

On Mon, 2024-06-03 at 12:09 +0100, Maciej W. Rozycki wrote:
> Anyway, back to my point. A feasible solution non-intrusive for Linux
> and low-overhead for GCC has been found. I can expedite implementation
> and I'll see if I can regression-test it too, but I may have to rely on
> other people to complete it after all, as I haven't been prepared for this
> effort in the light of certain issues I have recently suffered from in my
> lab.

That's really great to hear! Please let me know if you have something to test,
I would love to help with this effort.

> Is that going to be enough to bring the platform bits back?

That would be awesome. Would love to be able to keep running a current kernel
on my AlphaStation 233 which is pre-EV56.

> FAOD, with all the hacks so eagerly being removed now happily left in the
> dust bin where they belong, and which I wholeheartedly agree with: we
> shouldn't be suffering from design mistakes of systems that are no longer
> relevant, but I fail to see the reason why we should disallow their use
> where the burden is confined or plain elsewhere.

Agreed.

> For example we continue supporting old UP MIPS platforms that predate
> LL/SC, by just trapping and emulating these instructions. Surely it sucks
> performance-wise and it's possibly hundreds of cycles too, but it works
> and the burden is confined to the exception handler, so not a big deal.

Fully agreed.

Adrian

--
.''`. John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
: :' : Debian Developer
`. `' Physicist
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