Re: [PATCH] i386/x86-64: Fix timer SMP bootup race

[Andi Kleen <ak@suse.de>]

On Sat, Jan 15, 2005 at 06:34:54PM +1100, Rusty Russell wrote:
> > I shortly considered redoing the boot process, but then it looked 
> > too risky to me. 
> > 
> > e.g. I guess on x86-64 it wouldn't be that difficult, just a bit of work,
> > but on i386 with all the weird hardware it could be quite destabilizing.
> > But doing it on x86-64 only is not a good solution.
> 
> Well, architectures which support CPU hotplug have had to fix their boot
> process anyway, and most are fairly trivial.

The problem is not doing the work, but testing it.

> > If you had done it properly in 2.5 it would be working and tested
> > by now ;-) , but doing it in the middle of 2.6 would seem a bit misplaced
> > to me.
> 
> Linus would not have taken the patch, because it would have broken too
> much.  Cleaning up the x86 boot sequence is a project in itself, which
> needs to be done, but not by me 8)

I think my patch is better. It at least keeps all the 
baggage out of the normal run paths. Doing this check at each timer interrupt
doesn't make much sense.

-Andi