Date:   Wed, 8 Sep 1999 21:20:13 +0200 (MET DST)
From:   Mikael Pettersson <mikpe@csd.uu.se>
To:     linux-kernel@vger.rutgers.edu
Subject: [Announce] x86 performance-monitoring counters with Athlon support

I have released version 0.6 of my x86 performance-monitoring
counters patch for Linux. Recent updates include:

* The code will now build in kernels 2.2.12 and 2.3.17.
* Preliminary support for the AMD K7 Athlon processor.

At this point, I have two problems which I need some
community help to solve:

* AMD's documentation on the Athlon's performance-monitoring
  counters is inconsistent on one important point, namely
  the exact meaning of the "enable" bits in the four control
  registers. The driver's Athlon init procedure will run a
  couple of tests and report the results. Given those, I should
  be able to determine which control model AMD has implemented.

* For optimization purposes, I need CPU-dependent data on
  the costs for the different instructions which access the
  performance-monitoring counters and their control registers.
  The driver's init procedures will "dryrun" these instructions
  and report their cycle counts.

In both cases, the results will end up in the kernel log.
If you want to help out, a simple

	dmesg | grep '^PERFCTR' | mail mikpe@csd.uu.se

should do it. To turn off these additional checks, edit
arch/i386/kernel/perfctr.c and set INIT_DEBUG to 0.

This and future versions of this package can be downloaded from
http://www.csd.uu.se/~mikpe/linux/


/ Mikael Pettersson

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