mirror of
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git
synced 2026-02-19 12:25:40 -05:00
d926079f17
For each instance of an alternative, the compiler outputs a distinct copy of the alternative instructions into a subsection. As the compiler doesn't have special knowledge of alternatives, it cannot coalesce these to save space. In a defconfig kernel built with GCC 12.1.0, there are approximately 10,000 instances of alternative_has_feature_likely(), where the replacement instruction is always a NOP. As NOPs are position-independent, we don't need a unique copy per alternative sequence. This patch adds a callback to patch an alternative sequence with NOPs, and make use of this in alternative_has_feature_likely(). So that this can be used for other sites in future, this is written to patch multiple instructions up to the original sequence length. For NVHE, an alias is added to image-vars.h. For modules, the callback is exported. Note that as modules are loaded within 2GiB of the kernel, an alt_instr entry in a module can always refer directly to the callback, and no special handling is necessary. When building with GCC 12.1.0, the vmlinux is ~158KiB smaller, though the resulting Image size is unchanged due to alignment constraints and padding: | % ls -al vmlinux-* | -rwxr-xr-x 1 mark mark 134644592 Sep 1 14:52 vmlinux-after | -rwxr-xr-x 1 mark mark 134486232 Sep 1 14:50 vmlinux-before | % ls -al Image-* | -rw-r--r-- 1 mark mark 37108224 Sep 1 14:52 Image-after | -rw-r--r-- 1 mark mark 37108224 Sep 1 14:50 Image-before Signed-off-by: Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@arm.com> Cc: Ard Biesheuvel <ardb@kernel.org> Cc: James Morse <james.morse@arm.com> Cc: Joey Gouly <joey.gouly@arm.com> Cc: Marc Zyngier <maz@kernel.org> Cc: Will Deacon <will@kernel.org> Reviewed-by: Ard Biesheuvel <ardb@kernel.org> Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20220912162210.3626215-9-mark.rutland@arm.com Signed-off-by: Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@arm.com>
Linux kernel
============
There are several guides for kernel developers and users. These guides can
be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF. Please read
Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst first.
In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``. The formatted documentation can also be read online at:
https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/
There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the Restructured Text markup notation.
Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.