Re: [PATCH 0/7] ppc: remove cli()/sti() from arch/ppc/*

From: Christoph Hellwig
Date: Wed Jan 05 2005 - 04:29:47 EST


On Tue, Jan 04, 2005 at 09:44:06PM -0500, Jim Nelson wrote:
> Brian Gerst wrote:
>
> >James Nelson wrote:
> >
> >>This series of patches is to remove the last cli()/sti() function
> >>calls in arch/ppc.
> >>
> >>These are the only instances in active code that grep could find.
> >
> >
> >Are you sure none of these need real spinlocks instead of just
> >disabling interrupts?
> >
> >--
> > Brian Gerst
> >
> These are for single-processor systems, mostly evaluation boards and
> embedded processors. I coudn't find any reference to multiprocessor
> setups for the processors in question after a peruse of the code or a
> quick google on the boards in question.

think CONFIG_PREEMPT. In either case a spinlock becomes
lock_irq_disable in the !SMP, !PREEMPT case but it documents the
intention a whole lot better.

Also you're locking only in a single plpace which is a ***BIG*** warning
sign. At least look at the other users of the data structure, it's
extremly likely they'll need locking aswell.

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/