Re: [GIT PULL] x86 fixes

Linus Torvalds
2018-06-30T19:01:37Z

On Sat, Jun 30, 2018 at 1:49 AM Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org> wrote:
>
> --- a/arch/x86/entry/entry_32.S
> +++ b/arch/x86/entry/entry_32.S
> @@ -477,7 +477,7 @@ ENTRY(entry_SYSENTER_32)
> * whereas POPF does not.)
> */
> addl $PT_EFLAGS-PT_DS, %esp /* point esp at pt_regs->flags */
> - btr $X86_EFLAGS_IF_BIT, (%esp)
> + btrl $X86_EFLAGS_IF_BIT, (%esp)
> popfl

Ho humm. Just looking at this patch, my reaction was "why isn't this
an 'andl $~X86_EFLAGS_IF' instead"?

Yeah, I guess the 'andl' is two bytes longer (due to the 32-bit
constant - because IF is bit 9, you can't use a byte constant, and you
don't want to get a partial word write just before the popfl).

But btr is really pretty heavy operation for older CPU's (it's gotten
better, but 32-bit code presumably cares more about the older CPUs).

It really doesn't matter, I guess. The btr goes back to commit
c2c9b52fab0d ("x86/entry/32: Restore FLAGS on SYSEXIT").

Andy?

Linus