Messages in this thread | | | Date | Thu, 4 Feb 2010 13:39:23 +0900 | From | Paul Mundt <> | Subject | Re: USB mass storage and ARM cache coherency |
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On Wed, Feb 03, 2010 at 06:56:44PM -0500, George Spelvin wrote: > > Apart from that, flush_dcache_page() doesn't have any data flow > > information. Optimisations could be done on ARM if we know that the > > kernel only intends to read from a page (no flushing necessary with a > > non-aliasing D-cache). > > Already done in flush_dcache_page(). If possible (uniprocessor), it just > flags the page as PG_dcache_dirty, and defers the actual flush operation > until it's mapped somewhere else (either a virtual alias or executable). > Try reading the thread again, as you seem to have missed the point completely. The issue isn't with lazy dcache writeback, the issue is that flush_dcache_page() is a bit of a sledgehammer for cases when directional information is available. The DMA mapping operations conversely are aware of data flow and optimize accordingly.
Additionally, with something like a flush_dcache_range() it's possible to optimize for large ranges as opposed to page-at-a-time looping for anything that needs to flag PG_dcache_dirty on a bulk group of pages.
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