george anzinger writes:
> Uh... I do know about this map, but I wonder if it is at all needed.
> What is the real difference between a logical cpu and the physical one.
> Or is this only interesting if the machine is not Smp, i.e. all the cpus
> are not the same? It just seems to me that introducing an additional
> mapping just slows things down and, if all the cpus are the same, does
> not really do anything. Of course, I am assuming that ALL usage would
> be to the logical :)
Right. That is not always the case. IA32 is somewhat special. ;) The
logical mapping allows you to, among other things, easily enumerate
over the set of active processors without having to check if a
processor exists at the current processor address.
The difference is apparent when the physical CPU ID is, say, an
address on a processor bus, or worse, an address on a set of processor
busses. Take a look at the IA-64's smp.h. The IA64 physical
processor ID is a 64-bit structure that has to 8-bit ID's; an EID for
what amounts to a "processor bus" ID and an ID that corresponds to a
specific processor on a processor bus. Together, they're a system
global ID for a specific processor. But there is no guarantee that
the set of global ID's will be contiguous.
It's possible to have disjoint (non-contiguous) physical processor
ID's if a processor bus is not completely populated, or there is an
empty processor slot or odd processor numbering in firmware, or
whatever.
--Walt
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