linux-stable/kernel/Kconfig.preempt
Ingo Molnar f704f56af9 [PATCH] enable PREEMPT_BKL on !PREEMPT+SMP too
The only sane way to clean up the current 3 lock_kernel() variants seems to
be to remove the spinlock-based BKL implementations altogether, and to keep
the semaphore-based one only.  If we dont want to do that for whatever
reason then i'm afraid we have to live with the current complexity.  (but
i'm open for other cleanup suggestions as well.)

To explore this possibility we'll (at a minimum) have to know whether the
semaphore-based BKL works fine on plain SMP too.  The patch below enables
this.

The patch may make sense in isolation as well, as it might bring
performance benefits: code that would formerly spin on the BKL spinlock
will now schedule away and give up the CPU.  It might introduce performance
regressions as well, if any performance-critical code uses the BKL heavily
and gets overscheduled due to the semaphore.  I very much hope there is no
such performance-critical codepath left though.

Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2005-06-25 16:24:45 -07:00

24 lines
754 B
Text

config PREEMPT
bool "Preemptible Kernel"
help
This option reduces the latency of the kernel when reacting to
real-time or interactive events by allowing a low priority process to
be preempted even if it is in kernel mode executing a system call.
This allows applications to run more reliably even when the system is
under load.
Say Y here if you are building a kernel for a desktop, embedded
or real-time system. Say N if you are unsure.
config PREEMPT_BKL
bool "Preempt The Big Kernel Lock"
depends on SMP || PREEMPT
default y
help
This option reduces the latency of the kernel by making the
big kernel lock preemptible.
Say Y here if you are building a kernel for a desktop system.
Say N if you are unsure.