Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Re: [PATCH] x86: add the debugfs interface for the sysprof tool | From | Peter Zijlstra <> | Date | Wed, 20 Feb 2008 21:58:42 +0100 |
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On Wed, 2008-02-20 at 11:26 -0800, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> feel free to reinvent a whole GUI just to avoid a 200 line kernel module. > sysprof is here. it works.
> the gui is REALLY nice.
I guess we have to agree to disagree here. Its plain useless from my POV.
> I think it's the wrong tradeoff though... oprofile exists for how long?
Dunno, years, and has served me well.
The thing I worry about is the wild-growth of duplicate functionality and interfaces. You might say, 'its in /debug' so no API crap, but if enough user-space depends on it people _will_ complain if it breaks.
Hopefully someone will consolidate stuff - soon. I can agree with the fact that the oprofile user-interface is quite horrible, and perhaps the kernel code isn't pretty (never looked at it), so if people want to replace it, feel free, but offer a full replacement so we can deprecate and remove the old stuff, and not carry everything around.
Currently we have: readprofile, oprofile, perfmon and now sysprof.
Also, sysprof is a misnomer, you cannot be a system wide profiler and have code like:
+ if (!is_user) { + /* kernel */ + trace->pid = current->pid; + trace->truncated = 0; + trace->n_addresses = 1; + + /* 0x1 is taken by sysprof to mean "in kernel" */ + trace->addresses[0] = 0x1; + }
The kernel is an integral part of the system, it can often help to know where in the kernel time is spent - even if you're not directly interested in 'fixing' the kernel.
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