Kernel Summit: Virtual Memory [LWN.net]

Kernel Summit: Virtual Memory

Posted Jul 20, 2004 12:15 UTC (Tue) by lolando (subscriber, #7139)
Parent article: Kernel Summit: Virtual Memory

> Rusty Russell talked a bit about CPU hotplugging. There was not a whole lot
> to say; the CPU patches have been in the mainline for a while now. There is
> some lingering concern that the code has seen little testing; hotplug CPU
> setups are still relatively rare. One way of addressing that could be
> changing the SMP code to use the hotplug subsystem; when the system boots,
> all but the boot CPU would be brought up via hotplug events. The software
> suspend code, too, could perhaps make some use of the hotplug subsystem.

Maybe power management, too? Oooh, oooh, my laptop battery won't last during this whole plane trip... Quick, let's switch off the second CPU! I'm only doing offline IMAP anyway (damn these planes for not having broadband wifi).

(Never mind that if I can afford a dual-processor laptop I should also be able to afford a larger battery)

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CPU hot plug will matter for more laptops in future

Posted Jul 29, 2004 11:37 UTC (Thu) by ringerc (subscriber, #3071) [Link]

I wouldn't be too surprised to eventually see the day where the "celeron"
laptops of the world were the only ones with only one core. In this sort
of situation, I can imagine it being rather nice to be able to painlessly
"hot-swap" CPUs for power management purposes - preferably BEFORE the day
comes where the lack is a major problem.