Re: [PATCH] i386: add command line option "local_apic_timer_c2_ok"

Andreas Mohr
2007-03-29T21:45:23Z

Hi,

On Thu, Mar 29, 2007 at 02:16:54PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
>
>
> On Thu, 29 Mar 2007, Andi Kleen wrote:
> >
> > Here's a patch. I don't have a system with C1E, so i only tested that
> > the apic timer still works on a older AMD box.
>
> I think this looks better than what we have now, but it would look even
> better if the core CPUID stuff was in arch/i386/kernel/cpu/amd.c, and we
> simply had X86_FEATURE_BROKEN_C1_LAPIC etc..

Please don't, this would break the interface logically.
X86_FEATURE_xxx usually denotes a *feature*, not a "feature"
(Micro$oft speak for "bug" ;).
IOW most flags express a positive attribute, not a negative one.
An exception to this probably is X86_FEATURE_FXSAVE_LEAK and
X86_FEATURE_CMP_LEGACY, but all others seem to be positive, so we might
want to enforce this rule.

Thus, how about e.g. X86_FEATURE_LAPIC_C1_OK?
Or is this less precise from a "C1 working ok" detection point of view?
(i.e. we'd just assume by default that most machines are ok except the ones
where we have issue detection code for, which might be too fuzzy)

Andreas Mohr