Re: [RFC 0/3] cpufreq: cppc: Add support for frequency invariance
From: Viresh Kumar <viresh.kumar@linaro.org>
Date: 2020-07-10 03:00:46
Also in:
linux-arm-kernel, lkml
Thanks for the quick reply Ionela. On 09-07-20, 13:43, Ionela Voinescu wrote:
I'll put all my comments here for now, as they refer more to the design of the solution. I hope it won't be too repetitive compared to what we previously discussed offline.
I understand you want to get additional points of view.
Not necessarily, I knew you would be one of the major reviewers here :) I posted so you don't need to review in private anymore and then the code is somewhat updated since the previous time.
On Thursday 09 Jul 2020 at 15:43:32 (+0530), Viresh Kumar wrote:
I believe the code is unnecessarily invasive for the functionality it
tries to introduce and it does break existing functionality.
- (1) From code readability and design point of view, this switching
between an architectural method and a driver method complicates
an already complicated situation. We already have code that
chooses between a cpufreq-based method and a counter based method
for frequency invariance. This would basically introduce a choice
between a cpufreq-based method through arch_set_freq_scale(), an
architectural counter-based method through arch_set_freq_tick(),
and another cpufreq-based method that piggy-backs on the
architectural arch_set_freq_tick().I agree.
As discussed offline, before I even try to begin accepting the
possibility of this complicated mix, I would like to know why
methods of obtaining the same thing by using the cpufreq
arch_set_freq_scale()The problem is same as that was in case of x86, we don't know the real frequency the CPU may be running at and we need something that fires up periodically in a guaranteed way to capture the freq-scale. Though I am thinking now if we can trust the target_index() helper and keep updating the freq-scale based on the delta between last call to it and the latest call. I am not sure if it will be sufficient.
or even the more invasive wrapping of the
counter read functions is not working.I am not sure I understood this one.
- (2) For 1/3, the presence of AMU counters does not guarantee their
usability for frequency invariance. I know you wanted to avoid
the complications of AMUs being marked as supporting invariance
after the cpufreq driver init function, but this breaks the
scenario in which the maximum frequency is invalid.Is that really a scenario ? i.e. Invalid maximum frequency ? Why would that ever happen ? And I am not sure if this breaks anything which already exists, because all we are doing in this case now is not registering cppc for FI, which should be fine.
- (3) For 2/3, currently we support platforms that have partial support
for AMUs, while this would not be supported here. The suggestions
at (1) would give us this for free.As both were counter based mechanisms, I thought it would be better and more consistent if only one of them is picked. Though partial support of AMUs would still work without the CPPC driver. -- viresh