From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: catalin.marinas@arm.com (Catalin Marinas) Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2013 12:27:20 +0100 Subject: [RFC][PATCH 1/2] ARM64: add cpu topology definition In-Reply-To: <20130729095400.GB32383@mudshark.cambridge.arm.com> References: <1374921728-9007-1-git-send-email-hanjun.guo@linaro.org> <20130729095400.GB32383@mudshark.cambridge.arm.com> Message-ID: <20130814112720.GB43445@MacBook-Pro.local> To: linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org List-Id: linux-arm-kernel.lists.infradead.org On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 10:54:01AM +0100, Will Deacon wrote: > On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 10:46:06AM +0100, Vincent Guittot wrote: > > On 27 July 2013 12:42, Hanjun Guo wrote: > > > Power aware scheduling needs the cpu topology information to improve the > > > cpu scheduler decision making. > > > > It's not only power aware scheduling. The scheduler already uses > > topology and cache sharing when CONFIG_SCHED_MC and/or > > CONFIG_SCHED_SMT are enable. So you should also add these configs for > > arm64 so the scheduler can use it > > ... except that the architecture doesn't define what the AFF fields in MPIDR > really represent. Using them to make key scheduling decisions relating to > cache proximity seems pretty risky to me, especially given the track record > we've seen already on AArch32 silicon. It's a convenient register if it > contains the data we want it to contain, but we need to force ourselves to > come to terms with reality here and simply use it as an identifier for a > CPU. > > Can't we just use the device-tree to represent this topological data for > arm64? Lorenzo has been working on bindings in this area. Catching up on email after holiday - I agree with Will here, we should use DT for representing the topology (or ACPI) and not rely on the MPIDR value. -- Catalin