Re: [RFC PATCH V4 5/5] cpuidle: cpuidle driver for apm

[Trinabh Gupta <trinabh@linux.vnet.ibm.com>]

On 03/24/2011 02:02 AM, Len Brown wrote:
>>> Also wondering why you would ever have a different idle routine on
>>> different cpus?
>>
>> Yes, this is an ongoing debate. Apparently it is a possibility
>> because of ACPI bugs. CPU's can have asymmetric C-states
>> and overall different idle routines on different cpus. Please
>> refer to http://lkml.org/lkml/2009/9/24/132 and
>> https://lkml.org/lkml/2011/2/10/37 for a discussion around this.
>
> Althought the ACPI specification allows the BIOS to tell the OS
> about different C-states per-processor, I know of zero system
> in the field and zero systems in development that require that
> capability.  That isn't a guarantee that capability will never
> be used, but I'm not holding my breath.
>
> If there are systems with broken tables that make them
> appear asymetric, then we should have a workaround that handles
> that case, rather than complicating the normal code for
> the broken case.
>
> So I recommend deleting the extra per-cpu registration stuff
> unless there is some other architecture that requires it
> and can't hadle the asymmetry in another way.

Yes, lets go forward with removal of per-cpu registration
and handle rare case of asymmetry in some other may.

Using intersection or union of C-states for each cpu may
be a solution. Using intersection or lowest common C-state
has the corner case that we could have packages/cores
supporting a new lower C-state in case of thermal limit and
they would want OS to go to this state. Using intersection
or lowest common C-state may prevent this.

Another option is to use union of C-states;
but I am not sure what happens if a CPU uses a state that
is not reported for it???

Maybe there is some other way to handle asymmetry ??

>
>> I have posted a patch series that does global registration
>> i.e same idle routines for each cpu. Please check
>> http://lkml.org/lkml/2011/3/22/161 . That series applies on
>> top of this series. Global registration significantly
>> simplifies the design, but still we are not sure about the
>> direction to take.
>
> I'll review that.

Thanks; please review especially the data structure changes
https://lkml.org/lkml/2011/3/22/162

-Trinabh