From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Matthew Wilcox Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 21:18:49 +0000 Subject: Re: [Linux-ia64] Linux kernel deadlock caused by spinlock bug Message-Id: List-Id: References: In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: linux-ia64@vger.kernel.org On Mon, Jul 29, 2002 at 04:05:35PM -0500, Van Maren, Kevin wrote: > Recursive read locks certainly make it more difficult to fix the > problem. Placing a band-aid on gettimeofday will fix the symptom > in one location, but will not fix the general problem, which is > writer starvation with heavy read lock load. The only way to fix > that is to make writer locks fair or to eliminate them (make them > _all_ stateless). The basic principle is that if you see contention on a spinlock, you should eliminate the spinlock somehow. making spinlocks `fair' doesn't help that you're spending lots of time spinning on a lock. -- Revolutions do not require corporate support.