Re: [Linux-ia64] Linux kernel deadlock caused by spinlock bug

[Matthew Wilcox]

On Mon, Jul 29, 2002 at 04:05:35PM -0500, Van Maren, Kevin wrote:
> Recursive read locks certainly make it more difficult to fix the
> problem.  Placing a band-aid on gettimeofday will fix the symptom
> in one location, but will not fix the general problem, which is
> writer starvation with heavy read lock load.  The only way to fix
> that is to make writer locks fair or to eliminate them (make them
> _all_ stateless).

The basic principle is that if you see contention on a spinlock, you
should eliminate the spinlock somehow.  making spinlocks `fair' doesn't
help that you're spending lots of time spinning on a lock.

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