sys_times() return value

[Russell King <rmk+lkml@arm.linux.org.uk>]

Guys,

ARM folk have recently pointed out a problem with sys_times().
When the kernel boots, we set jiffies to -5 minutes.  This causes
sys_times() to return a negative number, which increments through
zero.

However, some negative numbers are used to return error codes.
Hence, there's a period of time when sys_times() returns values
which are indistinguishable from error codes shortly after boot.

This probably only affects 32-bit architectures.  However, one
wonders whether sys_times() needs force_successful_syscall_return().

Also, it appears that glibc does indeed interpret the return value
from sys_times in the way I describe above on at least ARM and x86.
Other architectures may be similarly affected.  Hopefully the ARM
glibc folk will raise a cross-architecture bug in glibc for this.

-- 
Russell King
 Linux kernel    2.6 ARM Linux   - http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/
 maintainer of:  2.6 Serial core