Hires timers in Octeon kernel

For Developers
1

hi all,

is there any particular reason why the Octeon kernel has the hires timers turned off, while most other Lede kernels have them on?

I am using Lede on the UBNT ERLite routers which are based on the Octeon and I have to build my own kernel with this only change. On other devices (ramips, sunxi, ar71xx) I have been using with Lede the hires timers are on by default.

The kernel seems to work fine with the hires timers enabled, at least in the way I am using the devices.

Thanks for any explanation or suggestion about the reason for this "anomaly".

Petr

2

Can you make a pull req on github?

3

I certainly can, but it bothers me why it was not on already - I suspect there might have been a reason and it might cause other issues (although I have been running several Octeon devices with hires timers for several months now).

I would rather wait if someone will come up with a story why it is off...

Petr

4

Uhm... Seems like it's already enabled by default?

5

Yes, but it is on for the other architectures. For MIPS Octeon (which is what the post was about - why is it OFF there while it is on elsewhere), it is still off:

https://github.com/lede-project/source/blob/master/target/linux/octeon/config-4.9
6

I'm not sure if I misunderstood something but afaik platform specific are added on top of the generic config, no?

7

H dizzy,

Just check out the tip on the Git master branch and do make menuconfig, select the Cavium Octeon and UBNT Edge Router Lite, exit. Then do make kernel_menuconfig (it takes a while as it is building a lot of stuff if this the first time around) and then check the hires timers under General and Timers. It is off. I am not sure the top level config file is used if there is a platform specific file or not, but for sure on this platform the hires timers are off.

I am not asking about how to turn them on, but if there is a reason to have them off and why is the default different from the other platforms.

Petr

8

I don't think that there is a specific reason for disabled HiRes timers in Octeon.

9

hi Jo-Philipp,

thanks, that would be good news.

Petr

10

Felix staged changes to align the HiRes configuration accross the different targets: https://git.lede-project.org/?p=lede/nbd/staging.git;a=summary

11

Excellent, thanks!