Re: [PATCH] Remove p4_clockmode driver

[Dave Jones <davej@codemonkey.org.uk>]

On Sat, May 03, 2008 at 09:47:10PM +0200, Thomas Renninger wrote:
 > Remove p4_clockmode driver
 >
 > The driver is doing throttling which is supposed to be done through another
 > ACPI interface. If both interfaces are used, the machine may get very slow.
 > Remove this driver which should never be used.
 >
 > Signed-off-by: Thomas Renninger <trenn@suse.de>

I agree this is long overdue being taken out back and shot.

Some thoughts though:

* Should we deprecate this for a release first ?
  I'm torn over this, because I think no matter how long we do this for,
  we're going to get people who claim to be surprised.
  Though given this driver is 99% useless, perhaps just ripping it out
  is for the best.

* Matthew Garrett mentioned something interesting this morning..

mjg59 | davej: On machines that don't support acpi throttling, I was under the impression that there was supposed to be a hook between the thermal code and cpufreq
mjg59 | Which would then let p4-clockmod be kicked even if it's below the threshold at which the CPU would throttle itself
davej | having that code expose T states rather than pretend to be P states is probably for the best.
mjg59 | Yeah, true

  So whilst killing this off is probably the right thing to do, there may be
  some value in parts of it living on in the ACPI code ?

I'll queue up this removal patch for linux-next, and we'll see if anyone screams.
(I doubt it, given the amount of testing that gets right now. It'll probably
not really get noticed until after it's in a Linus sanctioned release)

        Dave

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