On Wed, 22 February 2006 12:37:48 -0800, Caitlin Bestler wrote:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Below patch wasn't even compile tested. I'm not involved
with network drivers anymore, so my personal interest is
fairly low. But since I firmly believe in the advantages and
feasibility of interrupt-less TX, there should at least be an
ugly broken patch to flame about. Go for it, tell me how stupid I am!
Jörn
I am assuming the real goal is avoiding interrupts when
transmit completions can be reported without them on a
reasonably periodic basis.
Not necessarily on a periodic basis. For some network driver I once
worked on, the hardware simply had a ring buffer of n frames.
Whenever a n+1th frame was transmitted, the first would be checked for
completion. If it was completed, it was freed, else the new frame was
dropped (and freed).
So for this driver, the hardware permanently owned n memory areas
which would never get freed. Nice performance at the cost of a little
wasted memory.
Alternatively you could set a timer as well, sure.
Wouldn't that goal be achievable by the type of transmit
buffer ring implied for net channels?
Possibly. I don't really understand the transmit side of net channels
yet. But the principle should be the same. Whatever data structures
the kernel need on top of the raw packet is freed early, the raw
packet is handed over to the hardware and freed late.
Jörn
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There's nothing better for promoting creativity in a medium than
making an audience feel Hmm I could do better than that!
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