RE: [Xen-devel] [PATCH 3/8] ACPI: processor: add __acpi_processor_[un]register_driver helpers.

From: "Tian, Kevin" <kevin.tian@intel.com>
To: Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad@darnok.org>
Cc: "jeremy@goop.org" <jeremy@goop.org>,
	"xen-devel@lists.xensource.com" <xen-devel@lists.xensource.com>,
	"Ian.Campbell@citrix.com" <Ian.Campbell@citrix.com>,
	Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@oracle.com>,
	"mike.mcclurg@citrix.com" <mike.mcclurg@citrix.com>,
	"linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
	"stefan.bader@canonical.com" <stefan.bader@canonical.com>,
	"rjw@sisk.pl" <rjw@sisk.pl>,
	"linux-acpi@vger.kernel.org" <linux-acpi@vger.kernel.org>,
	"liang.tang@oracle.com" <liang.tang@oracle.com>,
	"Yu, Ke" <ke.yu@intel.com>,
	"konrad@kernel.org" <konrad@kernel.org>,
	"lenb@kernel.org" <lenb@kernel.org>
Subject: RE: [Xen-devel] [PATCH 3/8] ACPI: processor: add __acpi_processor_[un]register_driver helpers.
Date: Mon, 26 Dec 2011 01:31:45 +0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <AADFC41AFE54684AB9EE6CBC0274A5D10145B9@SHSMSX102.ccr.corp.intel.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20111223030103.GA7218@andromeda.dapyr.net>

> From: Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk [mailto:konrad@darnok.org]
> Sent: Friday, December 23, 2011 11:01 AM
> 
> > > OK. Lets put the # VCPU != PCPU aside. Say dom0 will boot with all
> > > CPUs and then later on the admin starts unplugging them.
> >
> > This should be communicated to major Xen based distributions, so that it's
> > an agreed approach since in majority case dom0 is configured as UP or
> > a few VCPUs.
> 
> I am not saying that is it the agreed approach. There has to be
> flexibility in supporting both. But what I want to understand whether
> the requirement for VCPU != PCPU can be put aside and put in the drivers
> later on.

sure. VCPU!=PCPU requirement is orthogonal to the basic part for gearing
ACPI information to Xen.

> 
> So that the first approach is not changing the generic drivers (much).
> The reason I am asking about this is two-fold:
>  1). For new distros (Ubuntu, Fedora), the default is all VCPUs.

good to know that.

>      Enterprising users might use dom0_max_vcpus to limit the VCPU count,
>      but most won't.
>      Which mean we can concentrate on bringing the _Pxx/_Cxx parsing
>      up to the hypervisor. Which is really neccessary on any chipset
>      which has the notion of TurboBoost (otherwise the Xen scheduler
>      won't pick this up and won't engage this mode in certain
>      workloads).
>  2). The ACPI maintainers are busy with ACPI 5.0. I don't know how
>      much work this is, but it probably means tons of stuff with
>      embedded platforms and tons of regression testing. So if there
>      is a patch that does not impact the generic code much (or any)
>      it will make their life easier. Which also means we can built
>      on top that for the VCPU != PCPU case.
> 
> That is what I am trying to understand.

no problem. this incremental approach should work.

Thanks
Kevin