Re: [GIT PULL] x86 FPU changes for 5.2

From: Ingo Molnar
Date: Tue May 07 2019 - 16:13:27 EST



* Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On Tue, May 7, 2019 at 6:26 AM Borislav Petkov <bp@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > This branch contains work started by Rik van Riel and brought to
> > fruition by Sebastian Andrzej Siewior with the main goal to optimize
> > when to load FPU registers: only when returning to userspace and not
> > on every context switch (while the task remains in the kernel).
>
> I love this and we should have done it long ago, but I also worry that
> every time we've messed with the FP state, we've had interesting bugs.
> Which is obviously why we didn't do this long ago.
>
> Has this gone through lots of testing, particularly with things like FP
> signal handling and old machines that don't necessarily have anything
> but the most basic FP state (ie Pentium class etc)?
>
> I've pulled it, but I'd still like to feel safer about it
> after-the-fact ;)

Most of the x86/fpu commits except the final one are several weeks old,
but I have to admit that our old-systems testing is hit and miss, and FPU
bugs do tend to have an additional 'bug report latency' multipier of a
factor of 3 or so ...

I've been running all this (modulo the final commit) on my primary
desktop and other systems as well, FWIIW.

Thanks,

Ingo