Re: Error in x86 CPU capabilities starting with test5/6

2000-11-19 Thread Albert D. Cahalan
> As about the broken calling conventions of the IA32 ABI, I think it > doesn't worth to break the binary compatibility at this late stage. We are not at any late stage. The new 64-bit PC processors might be accepted about as well as Microchannel and EISA were accepted. Crummy old 32-bit processo

Re: Error in x86 CPU capabilities starting with test5/6

2000-11-18 Thread Christoph Rohland
Andrea Arcangeli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Fri, Nov 17, 2000 at 05:06:49PM +0100, Christoph Rohland wrote: > > Could I get this for i686? :-) > > If we break binary compatibility yes. OK, I'll stick to rdtsc on ix86 Christoph - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "uns

Re: Error in x86 CPU capabilities starting with test5/6

2000-11-17 Thread Andrea Arcangeli
On Fri, Nov 17, 2000 at 05:06:49PM +0100, Christoph Rohland wrote: > Could I get this for i686? :-) If we break binary compatibility yes. I mean: new glibc binaries wouldn't run anymore on older kernels. Also new static binaries wouldn't run anymore on older kernels. At least if we don't introduc

Re: Error in x86 CPU capabilities starting with test5/6

2000-11-17 Thread Christoph Rohland
Hi Andrea, On Fri, 17 Nov 2000, Andrea Arcangeli wrote: > So as worse you'll have to wait x86-64 to get that lightweight > vgettimeofday. Could I get this for i686? :-) Greetings Christoph - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of

Re: Error in x86 CPU capabilities starting with test5/6

2000-11-17 Thread Andrea Arcangeli
On Fri, Nov 17, 2000 at 01:51:11PM +0100, Christoph Rohland wrote: > gettimeofday is _way_ to slow for a lot of every day uses. So > applications will use rdtsc until we have some really fast > (non-syscall) way to have high resolution time diffs. During the x86-64 design I made sure that in x86-

Re: Error in x86 CPU capabilities starting with test5/6

2000-11-17 Thread Alan Cox
> > I thought Linux kernel does synchronize them on boot? So, you are > > saying I cannot rely on this being 100% correct? > > Yes, it does so far. And if we cannot assume this to be correct in the > microsecond scale on smp machines with homogenous non-powersaving cpus > we will loose on some be

Re: Error in x86 CPU capabilities starting with test5/6

2000-11-17 Thread Christoph Rohland
Hi Tigran, On Fri, 17 Nov 2000, Tigran Aivazian wrote: > On Fri, 17 Nov 2000, Andi Kleen wrote: >> [of course rdtsc only works properly on UP or with bind_cpu()] > > I thought Linux kernel does synchronize them on boot? So, you are > saying I cannot rely on this being 100% correct? Yes, it does

Re: Error in x86 CPU capabilities starting with test5/6

2000-11-17 Thread Tigran Aivazian
On Fri, 17 Nov 2000, Andi Kleen wrote: > [of course rdtsc only works properly on UP or with bind_cpu()] I thought Linux kernel does synchronize them on boot? So, you are saying I cannot rely on this being 100% correct? Regards, Tigran - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe

Re: Error in x86 CPU capabilities starting with test5/6

2000-11-17 Thread Arjan van de Ven
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> you wrote: > Andi Kleen wrote: >> No it would not. Often you want cycle accurate couting for profiling >> purposes. > Isn't that why /dev/cpu/%d/msr exists? This is root only though.. (Yes, you can crash AMD boxes by reading MSR's) Greetings, Arjan van de

Re: Error in x86 CPU capabilities starting with test5/6

2000-11-17 Thread Andi Kleen
On Fri, Nov 17, 2000 at 08:40:27AM -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote: > Andi Kleen wrote: > > No it would not. Often you want cycle accurate couting for profiling > > purposes. > > Isn't that why /dev/cpu/%d/msr exists? Requires either root privileges or is a big security hole. [of course rdtsc only wor

Re: Error in x86 CPU capabilities starting with test5/6

2000-11-17 Thread Jeff Garzik
Andi Kleen wrote: > No it would not. Often you want cycle accurate couting for profiling > purposes. Isn't that why /dev/cpu/%d/msr exists? -- Jeff Garzik | Building 1024 | The chief enemy of creativity is "good" sense MandrakeSoft| -- Picasso - To uns

Re: Error in x86 CPU capabilities starting with test5/6

2000-11-17 Thread Mikael Pettersson
Hmm, my CPUID vs /proc/cpuinfo comment seemed somewhat controversial. Tigran Aivazian wrote: > Arguably, it is always better to parse /proc/cpuinfo instead of executing > CPUID directly (think PCI -- drivers should _NOT_ get their irq/io/etc > values from config space directly but only what th

Re: Error in x86 CPU capabilities starting with test5/6

2000-11-17 Thread Andi Kleen
On Fri, Nov 17, 2000 at 02:21:03PM +0100, Christoph Rohland wrote: > Hi Jeff, > > On Fri, 17 Nov 2000, Jeff Garzik wrote: > > IIRC, this came up a long time ago WRT Apache, which made a lot of > > gettimeofday() calls. Someone (Linus?) proposed the solution of a > > 'magic page' which holds info

Re: Error in x86 CPU capabilities starting with test5/6

2000-11-17 Thread Mohammad A. Haque
It used to be.. flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae but now called features It's a simple enough change. Contact me privately if you can't any avifile people to help. Jordan wrote: > > I have been running a plug in for xmms for some time that uses the > aviplay program and av

Re: Error in x86 CPU capabilities starting with test5/6

2000-11-17 Thread Christoph Rohland
Hi Jeff, On Fri, 17 Nov 2000, Jeff Garzik wrote: > IIRC, this came up a long time ago WRT Apache, which made a lot of > gettimeofday() calls. Someone (Linus?) proposed the solution of a > 'magic page' which holds information like gettimeofday() stuff, but > could be handled much more rapidly tha

Re: Error in x86 CPU capabilities starting with test5/6

2000-11-17 Thread Jeff Garzik
Christoph Rohland wrote: > > Hi Alan, > > On Fri, 17 Nov 2000, Alan Cox wrote: > > Even checking the cpuinfo for the TSC should be done with care, and > > its far far better to use gettimeofday unless doing very tiny > > timings (eg for optimising code paths) > > gettimeofday is _way_ to slow f

Re: Error in x86 CPU capabilities starting with test5/6

2000-11-17 Thread Christoph Rohland
Hi Alan, On Fri, 17 Nov 2000, Alan Cox wrote: > Even checking the cpuinfo for the TSC should be done with care, and > its far far better to use gettimeofday unless doing very tiny > timings (eg for optimising code paths) gettimeofday is _way_ to slow for a lot of every day uses. So applications

Re: Error in x86 CPU capabilities starting with test5/6

2000-11-17 Thread Andi Kleen
On Fri, Nov 17, 2000 at 01:14:30PM +0100, Jan Niehusmann wrote: > On Fri, Nov 17, 2000 at 01:04:18PM +0100, Andi Kleen wrote: > > The program would be broken if it executed CPUID itself, because it has no way to >guarantee > > that the CPUID is executed on all CPUs the scheduler may later move th

Re: Error in x86 CPU capabilities starting with test5/6

2000-11-17 Thread Jan Niehusmann
On Fri, Nov 17, 2000 at 01:04:18PM +0100, Andi Kleen wrote: > The program would be broken if it executed CPUID itself, because it has no way to >guarantee > that the CPUID is executed on all CPUs the scheduler may later move the task too. I wonder what's the right way for an app to ask the kerne

Re: Error in x86 CPU capabilities starting with test5/6

2000-11-17 Thread Alan Cox
> > You have a user-space program which parses /proc/cpuinfo instead of > > executing CPUID itself, so it breaks. > > Arguably, it is always better to parse /proc/cpuinfo instead of executing Actually this is definitively the case. It is not safe to use cpuid to check the availability of RDTSC

Re: Error in x86 CPU capabilities starting with test5/6

2000-11-17 Thread Andi Kleen
On Fri, Nov 17, 2000 at 12:39:59PM +0100, Mikael Pettersson wrote: > Jordan writes: > > I have been running a plug in for xmms for some time that uses the > > aviplay program and avifile library...then when upgrading to test5/6 I > > start getting this error message when running xmms: > > >

Re: Error in x86 CPU capabilities starting with test5/6

2000-11-17 Thread Tigran Aivazian
On Fri, 17 Nov 2000, Mikael Pettersson wrote: > You have a user-space program which parses /proc/cpuinfo instead of > executing CPUID itself, so it breaks. Hi Mikael, Arguably, it is always better to parse /proc/cpuinfo instead of executing CPUID directly (think PCI -- drivers should _NOT_ get t

Re: Error in x86 CPU capabilities starting with test5/6

2000-11-17 Thread Mikael Pettersson
Jordan writes: > I have been running a plug in for xmms for some time that uses the > aviplay program and avifile library...then when upgrading to test5/6 I > start getting this error message when running xmms: > > ERROR: no time-stamp counter found! Quitting. > ... > contents of /proc/cpu

Error in x86 CPU capabilities starting with test5/6

2000-11-17 Thread Jordan
I have been running a plug in for xmms for some time that uses the aviplay program and avifile library...then when upgrading to test5/6 I start getting this error message when running xmms: ERROR: no time-stamp counter found! Quitting. I finally trace it down to my avi plugin and then from ther