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perf, x86: Implement AMD IBS

From:  Robert Richter <robert.richter@amd.com>
To:  Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Subject:  [PATCH 0/7] perf, x86: Implement AMD IBS
Date:  Thu, 28 Jul 2011 15:46:45 +0200
Message-ID:  <1311860812-28748-1-git-send-email-robert.richter@amd.com>
Cc:  Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>, Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@redhat.com>, LKML <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Archive-link:  Article, Thread

This patch set adds support for AMD IBS to perf. It is a new
implementation and unrelated to my previous postings last year. The
main differences are:

* separate and independent from x86 perfctrs, IBS could be used
  without the x86 pmu,
* using dynamic pmu allocation, userspace uses sysfs to select the pmu,
* support for 64 bit counters,
* libperf based example code,
* shared IBS initialziation code for perf and oprofile.

The approach is still to collect raw sample data which should be the
most important use case for application developers. The data format is
the same as described in the IBS register specification.

Future work could be:

* better integration into the perf tool, use IBS for generic events
  where possible,
* support of the precise event sampling perf i/f,
* implementation of extended IBS features (e.g. ext. counter width),
* support of counting (perf stat),
* in-kernel IBS event parsing,
* IBS tracepoint support.

-Robert



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