* Thomas Gleixner <t...@linutronix.de> wrote:
> On Fri, 25 Nov 2016, Ingo Molnar wrote:
>
> >
> > * tip-bot for Tim Chen <tip...@zytor.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Commit-ID: 5e76b2ab36b40ca33023e78725bdc69eafd63134
> > > Gitweb:
> > > http://git.kernel.org/tip/5e76b2ab36b40ca33023e78725bdc69eafd63134
> > > Author: Tim Chen <tim.c.c...@linux.intel.com>
> > > AuthorDate: Tue, 22 Nov 2016 12:23:55 -0800
> > > Committer: Thomas Gleixner <t...@linutronix.de>
> > > CommitDate: Thu, 24 Nov 2016 20:44:19 +0100
> > >
> > > x86: Enable Intel Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0
> >
> > This patch doesn't build:
> >
> > Note that this patch has to be redone anyway, as it won't even build:
>
> The branch where I merged it to builds fine.
Indeed you are right - asm/mutex.h is gone in locking/core, so this is a
semantic
merge conflict, not a build failure.
> Though, yes I missed the asm/mutex.h include which obviously should be
> linux/mutex.h
>
> > > +#include <linux/sched.h>
> > > +#include <linux/cpumask.h>
> > > +#include <linux/cpuset.h>
> > > +#include <asm/mutex.h>
> > > +#include <linux/sched.h>
> > > +#include <linux/sysctl.h>
> > > +#include <linux/nodemask.h>
> >
> > arch/x86/kernel/itmt.c:26:23: fatal error: asm/mutex.h: No such file or
> > directory
> >
> > > +config SCHED_ITMT
> > > + bool "Intel Turbo Boost Max Technology (ITMT) scheduler support"
> > > + depends on SCHED_MC && CPU_SUP_INTEL && X86_INTEL_PSTATE
> > > + ---help---
> > > + ITMT enabled scheduler support improves the CPU scheduler's decision
> > > + to move tasks to cpu core that can be boosted to a higher frequency
> > > + than others. It will have better performance at a cost of slightly
> > > + increased overhead in task migrations. If unsure say N here.
> >
> > Argh, so the 'itmt' name really sucks as well - could we please make it
> > something
> > more obvious - like SCHED_INTEL_TURBO or so - and similarly rename the file
> > as
> > well?
> >
> > The sched_intel_turbo.c file could thus host all things related to
> > scheduler
> > support of turbo frequencies - it shouldn't be named after the Intel
> > acronym of
> > the day...
>
> It would be nice to come up with such nitpicks during review. This thing went
> through 8 iterations, but nothing came up and I didn't mind the itmt naming.
Yeah, so I had to NAK an early iteration and didn't get around to doing a
really
detailed review yet - and after (falsely) thinking it had a build failure I got
overly worked up about the bad naming: my bad and apologies!
So the code looks good to me but the naming still sucks a bit - I'm fine with
having the commits re-merged as-is and renaming the Kconfig variable to
something
more expressive: I've done this in tip:sched/core and have fixed the
asm/mutex.h
thing as well.
Wrt. improving the naming:
Firstly, popular tech news has coined the 'Turbo Boost Max' technology 'TBM'
(TBM2
and TBM3) as the natural acronym of the Intel feature - not 'ITMT'. So to
anyone
except people well aware of Intel acronyms the term 'ITMT' will be pretty
meaningless.
Does something more generic like SCHED_MC_PRIO (as an extension to SCHED_MC)
work
with everyone? Intel Turbo Max 3.0 is the current (only) implementation of it,
but
I don't think the technology will stop at that stage as dies are getting larger
but thinner.
I also think the Kconfig text is somewhat misleading and the default-disabled
status is counterproductive:
+config SCHED_ITMT
+ bool "Intel Turbo Boost Max Technology (ITMT) scheduler support"
+ depends on SCHED_MC && CPU_SUP_INTEL && X86_INTEL_PSTATE
+ ---help---
+ ITMT enabled scheduler support improves the CPU scheduler's decision
+ to move tasks to cpu core that can be boosted to a higher frequency
+ than others. It will have better performance at a cost of slightly
+ increased overhead in task migrations. If unsure say N here.
... the extra cost of smarter CPU selection is IMHO overwhelmed by the negative
effects of not knowing about core frequency ordering, on most workloads.
A better default would be default-y I believe (that is what we do for CPU
hardware
enablement typically), and a better description would be something like:
+config SCHED_MC_PRIO
+ bool "CPU core priorities scheduler support"
+ depends on SCHED_MC && CPU_SUP_INTEL && X86_INTEL_PSTATE
+ default y
+ ---help---
+ Intel Turbo Boost Max 3.0 enabled CPUs have a core ordering determined
at
+ manufacturing time, which allows certain cores to reach higher turbo
+ frequencies (when running single threaded workloads) than others.
+
+ Enabling this kernel feature teaches the scheduler about the TBM3
priority
+ order of the CPU cores and adjusts the scheduler's CPU selection logic
+ accordingly, so that higher overall system performance can be achieved.
+
+ This feature will have no effect on CPUs without this feature.
+
+ If unsure say Y here.
If/when other architectures make use of this the Kconfig entry can be moved
into
the scheduler Kconfig - but for the time being it can stay in arch/x86/.
Another variant would be to eliminate the Kconfig option altogether and make it
a
natural feature of SCHED_MC (like it is in the core scheduler).
Thanks,
Ingo
