Subject: Re: bit fields && data tearing

From: "H. Peter Anvin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 13:34:52 -0700

On 09/05/2014 01:14 PM, Peter Hurley wrote:
> 
> Here's how I read the two statements.
> 
> First, the commit message:
> 
> "It [this commit] documents that CPUs [supported by the Linux kernel]
> _must provide_ atomic one-byte and two-byte naturally aligned loads and stores."
> 
> Second, in the body of the document:
> 
> "The Linux kernel no longer supports pre-EV56 Alpha CPUs, because these
> older CPUs _do not provide_ atomic one-byte and two-byte loads and stores."
> 

Does this apply in general or only to SMP configurations?  I guess
non-SMP configurations would still have problems if interrupted in the
wrong place...

	-hpa