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2010-05-17 12:00
The Linux task viewer is here
Kernel developers are walking in user space and beyond
2010-03-10 12:00
Parallel real-time on multi-core systems with mainline Linux
Several tasks simultaneously running at real-time priority no longer interfere to each other!
2010-02-22 12:00
"Latest Stable" Linux mainline real-time 2.6.31 is out!
Kernel 2.6.31.12-rt21 is our latest and greatest
2010-02-21 12:00
OSADL at the Embedded World 2010
Industry needs Open Source - Open Source meets Industry
2010-02-09 12:00
Spinlock annotations merged from the realtime tree to Linux mainline in 2.6.33
Raw spinlocks are the "real" spinlocks now |
Spinlock annotations merged from the realtime tree to Linux mainline in 2.6.33
Raw spinlocks are the "real" spinlocks now
Up to now, mainline Linux only knew of one type of spinlocks - spinning spinlocks. In the PREEMPT_RT tree, however, it must be differentiated between spinlocks that might sleep in the realtime kernel and those that always spin - even in the realtime kernel. This required a new name space and a decision which type of spinlocks to rename. At the 2009 Kernel Summit, it was decided not to rename the locks that need to be converted to sleeping spinlocks in preempt-rt, since this would result in an enormous patch orgy and certainly create a lot of confusion.
Later on, in the final stage of the merge window of Linux 2.6.33, Linus came up with the proposal to
- rename the architecture implementations of spinlocks from raw_spinlock to arch_spinlock,
- to use raw_spinlock for spinlocks that always spin even on RT and
- to keep spinlock for spinlocks that might sleep in RT.
Thomas created this (still large) patch series which Linus merged into 2.6.33 on December 15, 2009. This reduced the size of the uncompressed preempt-rt patch by more than 600 kByte - another important milestone on our road towards complete integration of the RT tree into the mainline kernel!