Vaibhav Jain [off-list ref] writes:

This minor patch enables config option GENERIC_IDLE_POLL_SETUP for arch
powerpc. This should add support for kernel param 'nohlt'.

Which is named after an 8086 instruction :), but oh well.

Powerpc kernel also supports another kernel boot-time param called
'powersave' which can also be used to disable all cpu idle-states and
forces CPU to an idle-loop similar to what cpu_idle_poll() does. This
patch however makes powerpc kernel-parameters better aligned to the
generic boot-time parameters.

It would be nice if we could make our powersave=off parameter just
enable this generic logic.

Have you looked at if that's possible? At a glance it looks like it
should be, when cpu_idle_force_poll is true do_idle() never calls
cpuidle_idle_call(), so the cpuidle drivers are never invoked.

cheers