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Date:      Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:33:03 -0500
From:      "Dieter BSD" <dieterbsd@engineer.com>
To:        freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Giant lock gone?
Message-ID:  <20120119223304.218280@gmx.com>

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>>> The original goal for 5.0 was to completely remove the Giant lock (and
>>> do other cool SMP-related stuff). Eventually it was realized that this
>>> was too big a goal to fully accomplish in 5.0 (albeit too late in the
>>> process) and the goal was changed to do the basic framework for the new
>>> SMP model; and lay the groundwork for "some things run under Giant for
>>> now, and we'll remove it from them ASAP." That actually turned out to
>>> last through 6, making 7 the realization of what 5.0 was supposed to be.
>>
>> So you are saying that the Giant lock was completely removed in 7.0?
>>
>> 8.2 says:
>>
>> atkbd0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
>> psm0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
>
> Yeah, I think nitpicking minor details about Giant still being used on
> non-critical drivers is definitely the key to solving the problems that
> face FreeBSD today.
>
> I could have more thoroughly clarified the reality of the when/where/how
> of Giant but it really wasn't central to my point.

Sigh. I wasn't intending to nitpick, I was confused and curious by the
apparient contradiction between "completely remove" and
what I saw.

8.2 again:
find /usr/src/sys | xargs grep -i giant | wc -l
2018
Skimming though the output of grep, a few are just false positives,
but most appear to involve the Giant lock. Perhaps these are all
unimportant, I don't know.

Apologies to anyone I upset.



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