Re: RT patch acceptance

Bill Huey
2005-05-30T22:46:48Z

On Mon, May 30, 2005 at 06:49:36PM -0400, Karim Yaghmour wrote:
> Bill Huey (hui) wrote:
> >>From my memory DRM drivers have direct path to the vertical retrace
> > through the current ioctl() interface. It's not an issue for that driver
> > and probably many others that use simple syscalls like that.
>
> This is rather short. Can you elaborate a little on what you're trying
> to say here? thanks.

Paths entering back into userspace are simple like the use of read() to
respond to events.

> I didn't say the RT patch was hard to maintain. I said that it increased
> the cost of maintenance for the rest of the kernel (which is the feeling
> that seems to be echoed by other peoples' answers in this thread.)

Sorry, the RT patch really doesn't effect general kernel development
dramatically. It's just exploiting SMP work already in place to get data
safety and the like. It does however kill all bogus points in the kernel
that spin-waits for something to happen, which is a positive thing for the
kernel in general since it indicated sloppy code. If anything it makes the
kernel code cleaner.

This is last day of vacation, but it doesn't feel like it unfortunately :}

bill