From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "Paul E. McKenney" Subject: Re: bit fields && data tearing Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2014 13:43:12 -0700 Message-ID: <20140905204312.GA5001@linux.vnet.ibm.com> References: <5408E458.3@zytor.com> <54090AF4.7060406@hurleysoftware.com> <54091B30.2090509@zytor.com> <20140905081648.GB5281@omega> <20140905180950.GU5001@linux.vnet.ibm.com> <540A05F7.1070202@hurleysoftware.com> <20140905190506.GV5001@linux.vnet.ibm.com> <8CA974F497CA064FA9926E10ABCC061F05F97E7B77@MAILSJ4.global.cadence.com> <540A19B8.4010907@hurleysoftware.com> <540A1E6C.2020005@zytor.com> Reply-To: paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Return-path: Received: from e31.co.us.ibm.com ([32.97.110.149]:51577 "EHLO e31.co.us.ibm.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751920AbaIEUnT (ORCPT ); Fri, 5 Sep 2014 16:43:19 -0400 Received: from /spool/local by e31.co.us.ibm.com with IBM ESMTP SMTP Gateway: Authorized Use Only! Violators will be prosecuted for from ; Fri, 5 Sep 2014 14:43:18 -0600 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <540A1E6C.2020005@zytor.com> Sender: linux-arch-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: To: "H. Peter Anvin" Cc: Peter Hurley , Marc Gauthier , Michael Cree , Benjamin Herrenschmidt , David Laight , Jakub Jelinek , "linux-arch@vger.kernel.org" , Tony Luck , "linux-ia64@vger.kernel.org" , Oleg Nesterov , "linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org" , Paul Mackerras , "linuxppc-dev@lists.ozlabs.org" , Miroslav Franc , Richard Henderson , "linux-alpha@vger.kernel.org" On Fri, Sep 05, 2014 at 01:34:52PM -0700, H. Peter Anvin wrote: > On 09/05/2014 01:14 PM, Peter Hurley wrote: > > > > Here's how I read the two statements. > > > > First, the commit message: > > > > "It [this commit] documents that CPUs [supported by the Linux kernel] > > _must provide_ atomic one-byte and two-byte naturally aligned loads and stores." > > > > Second, in the body of the document: > > > > "The Linux kernel no longer supports pre-EV56 Alpha CPUs, because these > > older CPUs _do not provide_ atomic one-byte and two-byte loads and stores." > > > > Does this apply in general or only to SMP configurations? I guess > non-SMP configurations would still have problems if interrupted in the > wrong place... And preemption could cause problems, too. So I believe that it needs to be universal. Thanx, Paul