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Re: TS bit explanation

To: sprasad@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Srinivasa Prasad Thirumalachar)
Subject: Re: TS bit explanation
From: kanoj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Kanoj Sarcar)
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 11:18:34 -0700 (PDT)
Cc: linux-origin@xxxxxxxxxxx
In-reply-to: <200004111809.LAA35289@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> from "Srinivasa Prasad Thirumalachar" at Apr 11, 2000 11:09:28 AM
Sender: owner-linux-origin@xxxxxxxxxxx
> 
> Hi,
> The final word on TS ....
> 
> > It says that this bit is set when tlb is "presented" with an entry
> > that is already present and may cause multiple matches. It also
> > goes on to say those conflicting entries are invalidated before the
> > new entry is inserted. What we dont know is whether TS is sticky.
> > We dont know whether it gets cleared after the the r10k 'fixes'
> > everything.
> 
> In case you still have this TS question....
> The R10K "fixes" the other matching entries during the same write operation
> which caused them.  Afterwards the TS bit stays set.

That was my understanding from the above statement taken out of the manual.
Lets your page fault handler be sloppy, ie not need to do a tlbp, then a 
tlb dropin, when you are updating the tlb entry. Or may be high performance,
since you can avoid doing tlbp.

So, I don't have any questions on the TS getting set on entry into the 
kernel, if you are saying that the PROM fault handlers are getting it set.

> If you later do another TLB write which doesn't match any other entry, the TS
> bit will be cleared.

This is new to me. One wonders why the hardware guys exposed the bit at all,
since other than detecting a sloppy fault handler, I can't see any reason 
for software using it.

Kanoj

> 
> Thanks
> srinivasa
> 


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