Re: [GIT PULL] x86/alternatives padding

From: Borislav Petkov
Date: Wed Mar 04 2015 - 06:23:25 EST


On Wed, Mar 04, 2015 at 08:32:21AM +0100, Ingo Molnar wrote:
> Just curious: did the kernel image size change before/after these
> changes? I.e. was any of the existing alternative instructions using
> sites coded sub-optimally, with a larger maximum instruction size
> allocated than strictly needed?
>
> At least some of your improvements made things more optimal -
> wondering at the total win, beyond the significant maintainability win
> that is.

Well, kernel image doesn't change while vmlinux shows only a very small
.text increase of about 2K. I'm not sure yet why that happens though
because it shouldn't be the padding. Because we will have to do it
anyway, this patchset makes it automatic instead of by-hand, so to
speak.

Let me bisect it and see which patch adds the increase.

4.0-rc1 with alternatives patchset:
===================================

Setup is 15644 bytes (padded to 15872 bytes).
System is 5855 kB
CRC f2669897
Kernel: arch/x86/boot/bzImage is ready (#1)

text data bss dec hex filename
12292971 1595264 1085440 14973675 e47aeb vmlinux

plain 4.0-rc1:
==============

Setup is 15644 bytes (padded to 15872 bytes).
System is 5855 kB
CRC 7200607a
Kernel: arch/x86/boot/bzImage is ready (#1)

text data bss dec hex filename
12290539 1595264 1085440 14971243 e4716b vmlinux

--
Regards/Gruss,
Boris.

ECO tip #101: Trim your mails when you reply.
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