linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 0/3] arm64: cpuinfo: make /proc/cpuinfo more human-readable

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Date:   Fri, 20 Oct 2017 17:26:19 -0600
From:   Al Stone <ahs3@...hat.com>
To:     Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@....com>
Cc:     Timur Tabi <timur@...eaurora.org>,
        "linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org" 
        <linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org>,
        lkml <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>, rruigrok@...eaurora.org,
        Jon Masters <jcm@...hat.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/3] arm64: cpuinfo: make /proc/cpuinfo more
 human-readable

On 10/20/2017 10:10 AM, Mark Rutland wrote:
> Hi Al,
> 
> On Mon, Oct 16, 2017 at 05:43:19PM -0600, Al Stone wrote:
>> On 10/13/2017 08:27 AM, Mark Rutland wrote:
>>> I certainly agree that exposing the information that we have is useful,
>>> as I have stated several times. I'm not NAKing exposing this information
>>> elsewhere.
>>>
>>> If you want a consistent cross-architecture interface for this
>>> information, then you need to propose a new one. That was we can
>>> actually solve the underlying issues, for all architectures, without
>>> breaking ABI.
>>>
>>> I would be *very* interested in such an interface, and would be more
>>> than happy to help.
>>
>> I'm playing with some patches that do very similar things in sysfs, vs
>> proc.  Is that better :)?
> 
> Exposing data under sysfs is certainly better, yes. :)
> 
>> Obviously, you'll have to see the patches to
>> properly answer that, but what I'm playing with at present is placing
>> this info in new entries in /sys/devices/cpu and/or /sys/devices/system,
>> and generating some of the content based on what's already in header files
>> (e.g., in cputype.h). 
> 
> My opposition to MIDR -> string mapping applies regardless of
> location...

Harumph.  This is the one thing I get asked for most often, however (second most
is frequency).  It turns out humans are not nearly as good at indexed lookups as
computers, hence the requests.

Whatever the root of the opposition is, it needs to get fixed.  My fear is that
if it doesn't get fixed in the firmware or the kernel, it will get fixed in some
far messier, less controllable way somewhere else (more likely several somewhere
elses) and just exacerbate the problem.

>> The idea of course is to keep this new info from touching any existing
>> info so we don't break compatibility -- does that feel like a better
>> direction, at least?
> 
> ... but otherwise this sounds good to me!
> 
> Thanks,
> Mark.
> 


-- 
ciao,
al
-----------------------------------
Al Stone
Software Engineer
Red Hat, Inc.
ahs3@...hat.com
-----------------------------------