From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1758037AbZA2WOV (ORCPT ); Thu, 29 Jan 2009 17:14:21 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1752487AbZA2WOM (ORCPT ); Thu, 29 Jan 2009 17:14:12 -0500 Received: from mx3.mail.elte.hu ([157.181.1.138]:55194 "EHLO mx3.mail.elte.hu" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751850AbZA2WOL (ORCPT ); Thu, 29 Jan 2009 17:14:11 -0500 Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2009 23:14:02 +0100 From: Ingo Molnar To: Tim Pepper Cc: Andi Kleen , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, "H. Peter Anvin" , Thomas Gleixner Subject: Re: x86: unify genapic code, unify subarchitectures, remove old subarchitecture code Message-ID: <20090129221402.GA1984@elte.hu> References: <1233186180-29883-1-git-send-email-mingo@elte.hu> <87vdryw6ql.fsf@basil.nowhere.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) X-ELTE-VirusStatus: clean X-ELTE-SpamScore: -1.5 X-ELTE-SpamLevel: X-ELTE-SpamCheck: no X-ELTE-SpamVersion: ELTE 2.0 X-ELTE-SpamCheck-Details: score=-1.5 required=5.9 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=no SpamAssassin version=3.2.3 -1.5 BAYES_00 BODY: Bayesian spam probability is 0 to 1% [score: 0.0000] Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org * Tim Pepper wrote: > The machines (yes plural!) on which we had regular testing happening > have been offline for a few months due to some broader dependencies (eg: > console server in the old product used an old version of windows that > doesn't meet the corporate security standards) and we've just not > managed to get past that. That in turn is in the way of debugging boot > issues with newer kernels. At this point the most passionate > Sequent/IBMers caring about the NUMAQ support are resigned to it being a > lost cause. > > The main benefit to carrying NUMAQ support along this long was these > machines had a knack for triggering real bugs. But since there's no > active bug testing happening on them now and it doesn't look like there > will be... At this point there's no technical need to kill it - it's a zero-overhead thing tucked away into a single .c module in arch/x86/kernel/numaq_32.c. I even consolidated most of its headers in that file, to reduce its cross section. That was the main point of the restructuring i did - subarchitectures were causing ongoing maintenance overhead before. That overhead is practically zero now. So two days ago it might have made some sense to rip out this code - now there's no pressing need really. We can remove it in a few years once the last beep has been received from those platforms. The numaq code is now quite similar to an old driver in drivers/* - there's no real downside from having it around. Ingo