Re: linux-next: manual merge of the akpm tree with the tip tree

From: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
To: Andi Kleen <ak@linux.intel.com>
Cc: Stephen Rothwell <sfr@canb.auug.org.au>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>, Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>,
	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>,
	Linux-Next Mailing List <linux-next@vger.kernel.org>,
	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: linux-next: manual merge of the akpm tree with the tip tree
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2017 19:48:18 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20170331174818.6sqwonjhuonjmpif@hirez.programming.kicks-ass.net> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20170331160242.GF4543@tassilo.jf.intel.com>

On Fri, Mar 31, 2017 at 09:02:42AM -0700, Andi Kleen wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 31, 2017 at 04:45:46PM +0200, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> > On Fri, Mar 31, 2017 at 06:54:48AM -0700, Andi Kleen wrote:
> > > > Argh!
> > > > 
> > > > Andrew, please drop that patch. And the x86 out-of-line of __atomic_add_unless().
> > > 
> > > Why dropping the second?  Do you have something better?
> > 
> > The try_cmpxchg() patches save about half the text, and do not have the
> > out-of-line penalty as shown here:
> > 
> >    https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20170322165144.dtidvvbxey7w5pbd@hirez.programming.kicks-ass.net
> 
> Where is the source for the benchmark?

In that email; heck marc.info even provides a downloadable link, you
don't even have to go find it in your local lkml archives.

> Based on the description it sounds like it's testing atomic_inc(),
> which my patches don't change.

Yes, reading is hard.

It tests:

 lock incl

vs

 call refcount_inc

vs

 $inlined refcount_inc

And refcount_inc() is more complex than add_unless().

> BTW testing such things in tight loops is bad practice. If you run
> them back to back the CPU pipeline has to do much more serialization,
> which is usually not realistic and drastically overestimates
> the overhead.
> 
> A better practice is to run some real workload. If you want to see
> cycle counts you can look at LBR cycles, or PT cycles from sampling or tracing.

Hey, at least I did benchmark it. You just waved your hands and are
causing extra work for other people.

> > > On the first there were no 0day regressions, so at least basic performance
> > > checking has been done.
> > 
> > The first is superseded by much better patches in the scheduler tree.
> 
> Which patches exactly?  The new patches shrink the text too?

Try your local google foo; or look at the patch that conflicted, its
that one and the next.

In the end it comes down to -mm carrying patches against trees that are
maintained elsewhere without acks from said maintainers. I don't feel
bad about causing conflicts.