Re: [patch] 2.4.4 alpha semaphores optimization

[Andrea Arcangeli <andrea@suse.de>]

On Fri, May 04, 2001 at 01:15:28PM +0400, Ivan Kokshaysky wrote:
> However, there are 3 reasons why I prefer 16-bit counters:

I assume you mean 32bit counter. (that gives max 2^16 sleepers)

> a. "max user processes" ulimit is much lower than 64K anyway;

the 2^16 limit is not a per-user limit it is a global one so the max
user process ulimit is irrelevant.

Only the number of pid and the max number of tasks supported by the
architecture is a relevant limit for this.

> b. "long" count would cost extra 8 bytes in the struct rw_semaphore;

correct but that's the "feature" to be able to support 2^32 concurrent
sleepers at not relevant runtime cost 8).

> c. I can use existing atomic routines which deal with ints.

I was thinking at a dedicated routine that implements the slow path by
hand as well like x86 just do. Then using ldq instead of ldl isn't
really a big deal programmer wise.

Andrea