[patch 02/10] powerpc: Move CONFIG_PPC64 into CPU selection
Paul Mackerras
paulus at samba.org
Wed Jun 13 10:42:43 EST 2007
Segher Boessenkool writes:
> It would be good to converge the 32- and 64-bit implementations,
> and/or allow a single kernel image to work on both 32-bit and
> 64-bit systems, The current situation is far removed from that,
> so this patch is a bit premature in that aspect.
There will always be differences in emphasis and focus between 32-bit
and 64-bit. For example, the vast majority of 32-bit systems are UP,
with a few 2-way SMP systems, an insignificant number of 4-way
systems, and nothing bigger than 4-way. In contrast, most 64-bit
machines are SMP, with enough large SMP machines (64-way and bigger)
to be worth worrying about. Hence the 64-bit code focuses on SMP
scalability whereas the 32-bit code focuses on performance for UP and
2-way systems - which is why the hash table invalidations get batched
up on 64-bit machines but not on 32-bit machines, for instance.
Similarly, 64-bit supports large memory (>4GB) and NUMA machines,
whereas 32-bit doesn't.
Paul.
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