linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH RFC] x86, tsc: Allow for high latency in quick_pit

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Date:	4 Jun 2015 13:54:38 -0400
From:	"George Spelvin" <linux@...izon.com>
To:	linux@...izon.com, torvalds@...ux-foundation.org
Cc:	adrian.hunter@...el.com, ak@...ux.intel.com, hpa@...or.com,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, luto@...capital.net,
	mingo@...nel.org, tglx@...utronix.de
Subject: Re: [PATCH RFC] x86, tsc: Allow for high latency in quick_pit_calibrate()

On Thu, 4 Jun 2015 at 09:52:34, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> With the usual "have timestamp both before the read that shows the bit
> set, and after the read" so that you can estimate how big the error
> window is.

Actually, the current code uses three timestamps: one before the last
read of the unwanted value, one in the middle, and one after the
read of the target value (bit set in this case).

The delta beween the outer two is used for error estimaion, and the
middle timestamp is used as the guess for when the clock ticked.

Because, if you properly factor out the common code, an RTC read
is just one inb(), as opposed to two for the PIT, I would hope
it could do better.

> And you definitely want to disable interrupts and make sure nobody
> else reads that register, since reading it will clear it. Although I
> guess that during early boot there shouldn't be any other RTC
> activity..

That's the other reason to factor out the CMOS locking.

There's code in e.g.: arch/x86/kernel/rtc.c:mach_get_cmos_time() or
drivers/rtc/rtc-cmos.c:cmos_nvram_read() that would also benefit from
not acquiring and releasing the lock around every single one-byte read.
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