[POWERPC] Add fast little-endian switch system call

This adds a system call on 64-bit platforms for switching between
little-endian and big-endian modes that is much faster than doing a
prctl call.  This system call is handled as a special case right at
the start of the system call entry code, and because it is a special
case, it uses a system call number which is out of the range of
normal system calls, namely 0x1ebe.

Measurements with lmbench on a 4.2GHz POWER6 showed no measurable
change in the speed of normal system calls with this patch.

Switching endianness with this new system call takes around 60ns on a
4.2GHz POWER6, compared with around 300ns to switch endian mode with a
prctl.  This can provide a significant performance advantage for
emulators for little-endian architectures that want to switch between
big-endian and little-endian mode frequently, e.g. because they are
generating instructions sequences on the fly and they want to run
those sequences in little-endian mode.

The other thing about this system call is that it doesn't clobber as
many registers as a normal system call.  It only clobbers r12.

Signed-off-by: Paul Mackerras <paulus@samba.org>

diff --git a/arch/powerpc/kernel/head_64.S b/arch/powerpc/kernel/head_64.S
index 215973a2c8d5971fd8431505d1c58b62a4bd5bf7..024805e1747df86a9c1e58f71b581932b70ddae7 100644 (file)
--- a/arch/powerpc/kernel/head_64.S
+++ b/arch/powerpc/kernel/head_64.S
@@ -239,6 +239,10 @@ instruction_access_slb_pSeries:
        .globl  system_call_pSeries
 system_call_pSeries:
        HMT_MEDIUM
+BEGIN_FTR_SECTION
+       cmpdi   r0,0x1ebe
+       beq-    1f
+END_FTR_SECTION_IFSET(CPU_FTR_REAL_LE)
        mr      r9,r13
        mfmsr   r10
        mfspr   r13,SPRN_SPRG3
@@ -253,6 +257,13 @@ system_call_pSeries:
        rfid
        b       .       /* prevent speculative execution */
 
+/* Fast LE/BE switch system call */
+1:     mfspr   r12,SPRN_SRR1
+       xori    r12,r12,MSR_LE
+       mtspr   SPRN_SRR1,r12
+       rfid            /* return to userspace */
+       b       .
+
        STD_EXCEPTION_PSERIES(0xd00, single_step)
        STD_EXCEPTION_PSERIES(0xe00, trap_0e)