Alan Cox wrote:
>
> > 1. Would it be sufficient to just bracket all fpu-using code code by
> > kernel_fpu_begin()/kernel_fpu_end()? If not, what problems could I
> > run into?
>
> You can do that providing you dont
>
> > 2. Would it be OK to go to sleep inside such a region, or should I
> > take care to avoid that?
>
> You can't sleep in such a region - there is nowhere left to store the
> FPU context
>
> > 3. Perhaps I should call init_fpu() at some point as well? If so,
> > should it be done before or after kernel_fpu_begin()?
>
> After
>
> > 4. Is there any difference between doing this in the context of a user
> > process (implementation of an ioctl) compared to doing it in a
> > daemonized kernel thread (created by a loadable kernel module)?
>
> The kernel thread is actually easier, you can happily corrupt its user
> FPU context by sleeping since you are the only FPU user for the thread.
> Not nice, not portable but should work fine on x86 without any of the
> above for the moment.
>
> You should probably also test the FPU is present and handle it accordingly
> with polite messages not an oops 8)
So are kernel_fpu_begin()/kernel_fpu_end() (and also init_fpu()) necessary in a kernel thread at all
? Does kernel_fpu_begin()/kernel_fpu_end() take care of SSE and MMX registers too (I'm aware of the
extra "emms" needed in the MMX case) ?
Regards,
-- Steffen Persvold | Scalable Linux Systems | Try out the world's best mailto:sp@scali.com | http://www.scali.com | performing MPI implementation: Tel: (+47) 2262 8950 | Olaf Helsets vei 6 | - ScaMPI 1.13.8 - Fax: (+47) 2262 8951 | N0621 Oslo, NORWAY | >320MBytes/s and <4uS latency - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Feb 15 2002 - 21:01:01 EST