Linux support for ARM big.LITTLE [LWN.net]

Linux support for ARM big.LITTLE

Posted Feb 19, 2012 18:06 UTC (Sun) by alison (✭ supporter ✭, #63752)
In reply to: Linux support for ARM big.LITTLE by zlynx
Parent article: Linux support for ARM big.LITTLE

zlynx comments:

"it could use the big hammer of a full cache flush before unlock.
Cache coherency is really just a crutch. Lots of embedded programmers and Cell programmers (no cache protocol on the SPE's) know how to work without it. :-)"

Full cache flush == embedded "Big Kernel Lock" equivalent?

-- Alison Chaiken, alchaiken@gmail.com

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Linux support for ARM big.LITTLE

Posted Feb 19, 2012 21:51 UTC (Sun) by phip (guest, #1715) [Link]

Big Kernel Lock...

Hmm, that brings up another point I should have thought of earlier:
Non-coherent multi-CPU SOCs are also likely to not implement
atomic memory access primatives (i.e. Compare/Exchange, Test and Set,
Load-Linked/Store-Conditional, etc.)