Re: [PATCH v4 04/11] mips: use fallback for random_get_entropy() instead of zero

[Thomas Bogendoerfer <tsbogend@alpha.franken.de>]

On Fri, Apr 15, 2022 at 01:26:48PM +0100, Maciej W. Rozycki wrote:
> Hi Jason,
> 
> > >  It depends on the exact system.  Some have a 32-bit high-resolution 
> > > counter in the chipset (arch/mips/kernel/csrc-ioasic.c) giving like 25MHz 
> > > resolution, some have nothing but jiffies.
> > 
> > Alright, so there _are_ machines with no c0 cycles but with a good
> > clock. Yet, 25MHz is still less than the cpu cycle, so this c0 random
> > ORing trick remains useful perhaps.
> 
>  It's not much less than the CPU cycle really, given that the R3k CPUs are 
> clocked at up to 40MHz in the systems concerned and likewise the buggy R4k 
> CPUs run at up to 60MHz (and mind that their CP0 Count register increments 
> at half the clock rate, so the rate is up to 30MHz anyway).  The overhead 
> of the calculation is more than that, let alone the latency and issue rate 
> of an uncached MMIO access to the chipset register.
> 
>  Also the systems I have in mind and that lack a counter in the chipset 
> actually can make use of the buggy CP0 timer, because it's only when CP0 
> timer interrupts are used that the erratum matters, but they use a DS1287 
> RTC interrupt instead unconditionally as the clock event (see the comment 
> at the bottom of arch/mips/dec/time.c).  But this has not been factored in 
> with `can_use_mips_counter' (should it just check for `mips_hpt_frequency' 
> being zero perhaps, meaning the timer interrupt not being used?).
> 
>  Thomas, do you happen to know if any of the SGI systems that we support 
> had buggy early R4k chips?

IP22 has probably seen all buggy MIPS chips produced, so yes I even own
Indy/Indigo2 CPU boards with early R4k chips.

Thomas.

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