Bug 11153

Summary: The HPET emulation of rtc UIE interrupt is badly broken.
Product: Timers Reporter: W Unruh (unruh)
Component: Realtime ClockAssignee: timers_realtime-clock
Status: RESOLVED OBSOLETE    
Severity: high CC: alan, dbrownell, goneri, ossi, serge.bets
Priority: P1    
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
Kernel Version: 2.6.26 with the patches from bug 11112 Subsystem:
Regression: No Bisected commit-id:
Bug Depends on: 11312    
Bug Blocks:    
Attachments: updated test program
photo of test output before laptop wedged
switch rtc-cmos to dispatch through ACPI and mostly ignore HPET
updated patch, works around ACPI buglet

Description W Unruh 2008-07-23 16:28:04 UTC
Latest working kernel version:Non HPET kernels
Earliest failing kernel version:
Distribution:Mandriva
Hardware Environment:Core 2 duo Intel DG33BU motherboard
Software Environment:
Problem Description: The UIE interrupts from the HPET emulation of rtc timer are sometimes completely broken. The UIE interrupts do not occur at anything like 1 sec intervals. sometimes. 

Steps to reproduce:
Using the rtc-uie.c program from bug 11112, I altered it to test that the UIE interupts were coming at approx 1 sec intervals. While most of the time they do, sometimes on some of the runs the errors are attrocious. The HPET emulation of RTC in the legacy mode is just broken, and cannot be trusted.
( See also the discussion under bug 11112 where David Brownell has found the same behaviour)

Here is the output from a run of the attached program 
---------------------------------
Read using select(2) on /dev/rtc:
 1    0.782692  0190
 -3 *  1.652687  0190
 -2    2.652684  0190
 -1    3.652682  0190
 0    4.652685  0190
 1    5.652683  0190
 2    6.652683  0190
 -2 *  8.152767  0190
 -1    8.652708  0190
 0    9.652697  0190
 1    10.652695  0190
 2    11.652697  0190
 3    12.652641  0190
 -1 *  14.152733  0190
 0    14.652642  0190
 1    15.652642  0190
 2    16.652792  0190
 3    17.652640  0190
 -1 *  18.562086  0190
 0    19.562064  0190
 1    20.562039  0190
 2    21.562015  0190
 3    22.561989  0190
 4    23.561966  0190
 5    24.561940  0190
-------------------------------------
Note that the random glitches where the interrupt is occuring at some random time, and nowhere near a second since the previous one. For the first part of the run, the interrupt occurs about .65 sec after the seconds ( time 0 is when the interrupt was originally switched on.) Then suddenly at the 18 sec mark the time of the interrupt switches by 9 msec to .56 seconds after the seconds mark. 

The HPET seems to be totally unstable as a timekeeping source. Whether this is a hardware or a software fault I do not know. 
Altered rtc-uie.c below.

/* gcc -Os -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes rtc-uie.c -o rtc-uie */

#include <stdio.h>
#include <linux/rtc.h>
#include <sys/ioctl.h>
#include <time.h>
#include <sys/time.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <errno.h>

/*
 * This expects the new RTC class driver framework, working with
 * clocks that will often not be clones of what the PC-AT had.
 * Use the command line to specify another RTC if you need one.
 */
static const char default_rtc[] = "/dev/rtc0";

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
   int i, fd, retval, irqcount = 0;
   unsigned long data;
   const char *rtc = default_rtc;
   char * exception;
   struct timeval stv, etv;
   struct timezone tz;
   long sec, usec,oldsec,oldusec;

   switch (argc) {
   case 2:
      rtc = argv[1];
      /* FALLTHROUGH */
   case 1:
      break;
   default:
      fprintf(stderr, "usage:  rtc-uie [rtcdev]\n");
      return 1;
   }

   fd = open(rtc, O_RDONLY);

   if (fd == -1) {
      perror(rtc);
      exit(errno);
   }

   /* Turn on update interrupts (one per second) */
   gettimeofday(&stv, &tz);
   retval = ioctl(fd, RTC_UIE_ON, 0);
   if (retval == -1) {
      if (errno == ENOTTY) {
         fprintf(stderr, "\n...Update IRQs not supported.\n");
      }
      perror("RTC_UIE_ON ioctl");
      exit(errno);
   }

   fprintf(stderr, "\nRead using select(2) on /dev/rtc:\n");
   fflush(stderr);
   oldsec=0;oldusec=0;
   for (i = 1; i < 6; i++) {
      struct timeval tv = { 5, 0 }; /* 5 second timeout on select */
      fd_set readfds;

      FD_ZERO(&readfds);
      FD_SET(fd, &readfds);
      /* The select will wait until an RTC interrupt happens. */
      retval = select(fd + 1, &readfds, NULL, NULL, &tv);
      if (retval == -1) {
         perror("select");
         exit(errno);
      }
      /* This read won't block unlike the select-less case above. */
      retval = read(fd, &data, sizeof(unsigned long));
      if (retval == -1) {
         perror("read");
         exit(errno);
      }
      gettimeofday(&etv, &tz);
      sec = etv.tv_sec - stv.tv_sec;
      usec = etv.tv_usec - stv.tv_usec;
      if (usec < 0) {
         usec += 1000000;
         sec -= 1;
      } else if (usec > 1000000) {
         usec -= 1000000;
         sec++;
      }
      if(abs((sec-oldsec-1)*1000000+(usec-oldusec))>1000 && i>1)
           {
              exception="*";
              i -= 5;
           }
        else exception=" ";
      fprintf(stderr, " %d %s  %ld.%06lu  %04lx\n", i,exception, sec, usec, data);
      fflush(stderr);
      oldsec=sec;
      oldusec=usec;
      irqcount++;
   }
   /* Turn off update interrupts */
   retval = ioctl(fd, RTC_UIE_OFF, 0);
   if (retval == -1) {
      perror("RTC_UIE_OFF ioctl");
      exit(errno);
   }

   return 0;
}
Comment 1 W Unruh 2008-07-23 17:24:13 UTC
I have now run the same test with the same kernel on a different machine (D915GAG Intel motherboard) and here I saw no anomalous results. Ie, the bug seems to be hardware dependent. Is there any way that the hpet can be turned off entirely and allow the rtc interrupts to be visible to the rtc-cmos driver?
Comment 2 David Brownell 2008-07-23 17:58:12 UTC
Created attachment 16958 [details]
updated test program


> Read using select(2) on /dev/rtc:

Program needs to be fixed to give the right RTC path ... /dev/rtc0
is usually correct, /dev/rtc rarely is!!

I also changed the logic of how the "interesting" ticks are identified, so it ignores deltas within scope of the 64 Hz sampling.  And made sure the left column mostly lines up.
Comment 3 David Brownell 2008-07-23 18:02:04 UTC
One small point to remember is that the HPET emulation is normally
driven at 64 Hz, so these measurements have only 1000/64 msecs of
precision ... call it 16 msecs.  That large a difference is noise.

But most of these are larger differences, suggesting that something
is delaying either (a) handling the IRQ, or maybe (b) getting the
notification up to userspace.  Plus of course (c) something else.

Since this phenomenon has not been observed with real RTC interrupts
(on boards with no HPET), I'm thinking (b) is a non-issue, leaving
(a) and (c) as the likely causes.

If IRQ delays happened at the times marked "#" that would explain
most of these cases nicely.  These delays seem long for SMI, but
I suspect a pattern might be observable...

# 130 msec delay (?)
>  1    0.782692  0190
>  -3 *  1.652687  0190
>  -2    2.652684  0190
>  -1    3.652682  0190
>  0    4.652685  0190
>  1    5.652683  0190
>  2    6.652683  0190

# 400 msec delay
>  -2 *  8.152767  0190
>  -1    8.652708  0190
>  0    9.652697  0190
>  1    10.652695  0190
>  2    11.652697  0190
>  3    12.652641  0190

# 500 msec delay
>  -1 *  14.152733  0190
>  0    14.652642  0190
>  1    15.652642  0190
>  2    16.652792  0190
>  3    17.652640  0190

... this is odd:  90 msec *early*
>  -1 *  18.562086  0190
>  0    19.562064  0190
>  1    20.562039  0190
>  2    21.562015  0190
>  3    22.561989  0190
>  4    23.561966  0190
>  5    24.561940  0190

Now, that 90 msec is VERY odd.  If it were even as much as 16 msec
it could be explained easily by the 64 Hz measurement precision.
Comment 4 W Unruh 2008-07-23 18:27:13 UTC
a) On the same machine that generated those horrible errors, if I loaded the kernel with the 
nohpet
kernel option, everything worked just fine (127 different runs and nary a problem). (strangely there is still a /dev/hpet file.)
 

b) I am seriously perturbed by your apparent claim that the hpet only reports the interrupt in units of 1/64th of a second. That is really horrible for any kind of high precision timing! With ntp/chrony controlling the system clock to microsecond accuracy, to have to make do with 16msec accuracy on the rtc is terrible. (why is it not called a LPET?) Is there any reason at all why anyone should enable HPET on their systems?
Comment 5 David Brownell 2008-07-23 18:34:39 UTC
Created attachment 16959 [details]
photo of test output before laptop wedged

OK, two more odd data points.  With that new test program, I have twice observed a system lockup (!!), details currently unknown.  This is running a 2.6.26 kernel with my patches, Ubuntu latest, and X11 on a Core2 laptop:

 - One time I ran the test program in one window with a (partial) kernel rebuild in another ... no "*" alerts got to the screen.  I had to run the test a lot since it was acting just fine.  (Until the lockup!)

 - Another time I ran *just* that test program, and it must have done something very "right" because it only seemed to see oddly mistimed "*" alerts ... the attached photo shows everything up to the instant it wedged.
Comment 6 David Brownell 2008-07-23 19:08:58 UTC
> b) I am seriously perturbed by your apparent claim that the hpet only reports
> the interrupt in units of 1/64th of a second. That is really horrible for any
> kind of high precision timing!

Agreed.  It's the RTC_UIE emulation which sucks that badly ... although given the issues we've observed, I wonder what else may be going on.  In other roles, HPET works nicely.


> With ntp/chrony controlling the system clock to microsecond accuracy, to
> have to make do with 16msec accuracy on the rtc is terrible.

I always call the "legacy replacement" IRQ mode "broken mode", since it prevents effective use of the RTC IRQs ... all of them, including in this case the update IRQs with their 30.518 usec accuracy.


> (why is it not called a LPET?)

If it weren't interfering with the RTC, it would make a nice system timebase.  But ... it's interfering.


> Is there any reason at all why anyone
> should enable HPET on their systems?

It's truly a strange bit of hardware design, which you can evidently blame at least in part on Microsoft.

One thing you can get out of HPET with no trouble at all is a 10+ MHz monotonic counter ... exactly what you want for a good clock source, you get very precise event timestamps.

But right now Linux can't get that without also kicking in its interrupts, and that's what causes the problems for anyone trying to leverage RTC capabilities.

If you didn't care about RTCs you'd be happy to have a clockevent source that could give you either periodic or oneshot IRQs, suitable for NO_HZ operation (saving power) and also high precision timers (IRQ when that fast counter matches your selected value, better than 100 nsec precision).

The good bits are complicated by the way most BIOS programmers haven't bothered to set up routing so the non-broken HPET IRQ mode can be used.  Sigh.  If the "sane" mode were usable, the system timekeeping could happily use it for a good tick source -- and NO_HZ mode -- and forget about it otherwise.
Comment 7 W Unruh 2008-07-23 20:37:08 UTC
Just ran a much longer test of that bad machine -- ran 1000 sequences of the rtc-uie altered program on that bad machine (the one that gave those terrible results) and no problems. 
Looks like booting the kernel with nohpet is at least one answer to problems with the hpet rtc  problems. 
Comment 8 W Unruh 2008-07-24 09:38:44 UTC
OK, I have been reading the hpet.c code and the HPET timer specifications,
and am confused.
a) The Specifications state that the HPET disables the RTC IRQ but only for
the PIE. It states that the Alarm IRQ from the RTC is still delivered by
the SCI

"BIOS sets LegacyReplacement Route bit (LEG_RT_CNF)
> LegacyReplacement IRQ Routing Enabled for Comparator_1
If present, RTC Periodic Interrupt Function will not cause any
interrupts.
RTC Alarm function (still required) will signal interrupts via SCI
RTC CMOS function (still required) will consume i/o range

Now this says nothing about the UIE, but I would expect that that would be
an alarm ratehr than a Periodic interrupt ( but one could make arguments
either way).

However, there is also the Legacy Replacement Route bit which the OS
(linux) can set or unset. This would enable or disable the Legacy
Replacement. Ie, it would seem that a much more sensible default for the
Linux kernel should be to disable this bit, so that Legacy Replacement does
NOT occur, unless there is no RTC on the motherboard, in which case theycan
enable this. Or they (the Linux kernel writers responsible for hpet.c) can
include another kernel option, hpetlegacy or nohpetlegacy to enable or
disable the Legacy Replacement bit. That way people whose have hpet but no,
or a broken RTC can use the Legacy Replacement mode, and those (almost all
motherboards?) who have a working rtc can run with a disabled kernel.

Or a subroutine to switch on and off this bit could be called by the
rtc-cmos routine to switch off the legacy replacement bit. (There is
already and hpet_enable_legacy_int and we would need a
hpet_disable_legacy_int routine that the rtc code could call.


That kludge of having the RTC UIE mimiced by using HPET counter 1 in 64 Hz
Periodic  mode
and reading the rtc each time to see if it has changed, could be used only
in the case of totally  brain dead rtcs.

I would try writing this, but since my knowledge of both the HPET, and the
linux kernel, and of comptentent coding skills precludes this.

I may also be talking nonsense due to my verypoor understanding of the HPET
and of the kernel code.
Comment 9 Anonymous Emailer 2008-07-24 12:56:30 UTC
Reply-To: david-b@pacbell.net

> and am confused.
> a) The Specifications state that the HPET disables the RTC IRQ but only for
> the PIE. It states that the Alarm IRQ from the RTC is still delivered by
> the SCI

Linux doesn't/can't/mustn't intercept SCI though.  Agreed that the spec
seems a bit ambiguous.  I'm new to HPET details, the folk who came before
me seem to have observed the obvious behavior:  there's only one RTC IRQ
signal, gated by LEG_RT_CNF, except that alarms have some special logic
since they're wake events.


> However, there is also the Legacy Replacement Route bit which the OS
> (linux) can set or unset. This would enable or disable the Legacy
> Replacement.

That would deeply goof up the system timer code though.  If you look
for example at Intel's southbridge docs -- ICH5 and newer have HPET
modules, basically all the same except ICH9 and/or ICH10 add another
comparator -- the ONLY way to have the dedicated-by-Linux "timer" IRQ
fed by the HPET is to use "legacy replacement mode".


> Ie, it would seem that a much more sensible default for the 
> Linux kernel should be to disable this bit, so that Legacy Replacement does
> NOT occur,

As I already noted:  most BIOS writers don't support this entirely
laudable goal.  They don't set up routing for the HPET IRQs.  Which
means switching IRQ routing modes isn't very practical.


> unless there is no RTC on the motherboard, 

All x86 PCs have an RTC, except maybe ones predating the PC/AT.
Comment 10 W Unruh 2008-07-24 13:32:05 UTC
On Thu, 24 Jul 2008, bugme-daemon@bugzilla.kernel.org wrote:

> Reply-To: david-b@pacbell.net
>
>> and am confused.
>> a) The Specifications state that the HPET disables the RTC IRQ but only for
>> the PIE. It states that the Alarm IRQ from the RTC is still delivered by
>> the SCI
>
> Linux doesn't/can't/mustn't intercept SCI though.  Agreed that the spec

OK, I am way out of my depth.

> seems a bit ambiguous.  I'm new to HPET details, the folk who came before
> me seem to have observed the obvious behavior:  there's only one RTC IRQ
> signal, gated by LEG_RT_CNF, except that alarms have some special logic
> since they're wake events.
>
>
>> However, there is also the Legacy Replacement Route bit which the OS
>> (linux) can set or unset. This would enable or disable the Legacy
>> Replacement.
>
> That would deeply goof up the system timer code though.  If you look
> for example at Intel's southbridge docs -- ICH5 and newer have HPET
> modules, basically all the same except ICH9 and/or ICH10 add another
> comparator -- the ONLY way to have the dedicated-by-Linux "timer" IRQ
> fed by the HPET is to use "legacy replacement mode".

Ah, so Linux uses the 8254 timer int 0/2 stuff in some crucial way. But what
happens if I disable hpet ( use the nohpet kernel option). The system still
runs fine. And the rtc now behaves itself. That would seem to switch off
the legacy mode, but the timer IRQ still works.

But now I am still confused. On my machine, the timer, which is an IO-ACPI
interrupt is interrupt 0, while the HPET docs state that the HPET 0 which
takes over the 8254 functions is interrupt 2 in IO-APIC mode.

Anyway, my confusion is probably going to remain high, since my ignorance
is so deep.

>
>
>> Ie, it would seem that a much more sensible default for the
>> Linux kernel should be to disable this bit, so that Legacy Replacement does
>> NOT occur,
>
> As I already noted:  most BIOS writers don't support this entirely
> laudable goal.  They don't set up routing for the HPET IRQs.  Which
> means switching IRQ routing modes isn't very practical.

Again, I am unclear on what the BIOS has to do with it. It seems from the
specs that Linux can set up the HPET however they want, and if the Bios does
it badly, Linux can fix it.


>
>
>> unless there is no RTC on the motherboard,
>
> All x86 PCs have an RTC, except maybe ones predating the PC/AT.
Comment 11 W Unruh 2008-07-25 14:51:18 UTC
Ran a test on an older system. Mandriva 2007.1 2.6.17 kernel. 
HPET and HPET_EMULAT_RTC are both on in the kernel. The rtc module is not loaded. 

I do this simply to provide and older benchmark.
13 out of 100 runs of the rtc-uie program had glitches, but all were at the 1ms level ( although that does not fit in with the 64Hz explanation for the glitches, since one would expect them to actually be 16ms glitches.)
All are  1.0-1.8ms glitches, with in one the glitch goes earlier rather than later by 1ms. In all cases the system settles in to the new value after the glitch. 

Since the HPET/rtc code has changed since 2.6.17 this is provided in the hope that it might be useful in tracking down the causes of such glitches. 

The config file claims that the system has a 250Hz clock, adjtimex reports that          tick: 10000

This suggests it is not just a lost tick. (ntp which is running on the system reports no glitches but controls the clock to a few usec. 

If it were 11 min mode, I would not expect the random distribution of the glitches. 





Read using select(2) on /dev/rtc:
 1    0.765250  01d0
 2    1.765224  01d0
 3    2.765207  01d0
 -1 *  3.763878  01d0
 0    4.763862  01d0
 1    5.763844  01d0
 2    6.763827  01d0
 3    7.763810  01d0
 4    8.763793  01d0
 5    9.763776  01d0

Read using select(2) on /dev/rtc:
 1    0.658835  01d0
 2    1.658809  01d0
 3    2.658792  01d0
 -1 *  3.659842  01d0
 0    4.659825  01d0
 1    5.659809  01d0
 2    6.659792  01d0
 3    7.659773  01d0
 4    8.659758  01d0
 5    9.659741  01d0
Comment 12 Serge Bets 2008-07-26 06:58:07 UTC
Hello David,

(In reply to comment #6)
> the [RTC] update IRQs with their 30.518 usec accuracy.

The 30 microseconds granularity does not limit accuracy, which is better
than this when using smart tools like hwclock 2.33 or adjtimex 1.24
Their method to read more accurately the RTC is to measure the offset at
the first UIE following RTC_SET_TIME, in order to correct the time
elapsed since then (between this first UIE and the current UIE). The
interval between two UIEs is of course an integer number of seconds, and
an integer number of 30 usec grains. But the correction goes below the
grain.

Unfortunately even this smart method can do nothing against the HPET
emulated 64 Hz granularity, which adds a different gigantic random noise
to the timestamps of each one of the emulated UIEs.


Serge.
--
Serge point Bets arobase laposte point net
Comment 13 David Brownell 2008-07-29 12:54:44 UTC
> But now I am still confused. On my machine, the timer, which is an IO-ACPI
> interrupt is interrupt 0, while the HPET docs state that the HPET 0 which
> takes over the 8254 functions is interrupt 2 in IO-APIC mode.

The IO-APIC is an IRQ *ROUTER* ... so the input pin #2 gets rerouted to
output IRQ #0.  Most pins, thankfully, use an identity mapping.


> > As I already noted:  most BIOS writers don't support this entirely
> > laudable goal.  They don't set up routing for the HPET IRQs.  Which
> > means switching IRQ routing modes isn't very practical.
>
> Again, I am unclear on what the BIOS has to do with it. It seems from the
> specs that Linux can set up the HPET however they want, and if the Bios does
> it badly, Linux can fix it.

Linux *could* fix this ... but as a general policy, it doesn't second-guess
the IRQ routing set up by the BIOS.  I could imagine that changing someday;
but it'd be a fair amount of work to do well, given the amount of hardware
braindamage workarounds that are hidden in such BIOS code.
Comment 14 Michael Brennan 2008-08-10 13:35:34 UTC
I don't know anything about RTCs but I suspect I am suffering from this bug, quite often at bootup or shutdown when hwclock is used my system freezes. Sometimes I can just press a key or move the mouse and it will continue with a complaint about lost interrupts, sometimes it locks up completely and I need to turn off the computer. Is this bug being worked on? I'm just wondering, because now I need to disable hpet to get a working system.

Thanks
Comment 15 David Brownell 2008-08-10 14:32:51 UTC
I don't know that anyone "owns" HPET, so it's unclear to me who ought to work on that aspect.  For now, just disable HPET -- that's a robust workaround, with minimal downside.

I'm looking at something that might work if the HPET docs are wrong about one part of the IRQ routing:  if *all* RTC irqs go through SCI and thence ACPI, rather than just alarms, then the ACPI event mechanisms should let us get "real RTC IRQs".  (Since the RTC only has one IRQ signal, it would be very strange to require HPET support to modify the RTC silicon to split its IRQ source into three parts...)  ACPI would  add at least some delays; I don't know how significant they would be.

Thing is, I've never observed that part of ACPI to work. I've got the experiment set up now, I've just got to make time to run it and evaluate the results.  Then make a clean solution, if it works, and hope that other platforms don't have blocking ACPI or hardware bugs.
Comment 16 David Brownell 2008-08-12 02:14:45 UTC
Created attachment 17185 [details]
switch rtc-cmos to dispatch through ACPI and mostly ignore HPET

Turns out it's not so hard to get that to work.  It seems that ACPI will intercept RTC interrupts even if it's not forced to do so via the HPET legacy replacement mode.  And the overhead of going through ACPI really isn't much...

I've tested this on an old non-HPET machine, an HPET machine with and without HPET active, and it seems to behave fine.
Comment 17 David Brownell 2008-08-12 12:45:42 UTC
Unfortunately, see bug 11312 ... ACPI seems to spontaneously go AWOL, causing  trouble for this otherwise clean fix.
Comment 18 David Brownell 2008-08-13 15:47:10 UTC
Created attachment 17222 [details]
updated patch, works around ACPI buglet

I took a different strategy (more cautious) in this version:  only filter through ACPI when emulating HPET (so it works on my system which doesn't handle ACPI IRQs), and keep that ACPI support disabled until some real RTC interrupts are enabled (hoping it will help avoid the cases where ACPI spontaneously disables the RTC event handler).  Works fine so far in light testing.
Comment 19 David Brownell 2008-08-14 01:08:04 UTC
By the way, I think I can confirm that the system lockups mentioned in comment #5 have nothing at all to do with flakey HPET emulation.  Other folk have seen them, and I just saw one with the patch from comment #18 applied ... no RTC stuff at all was running, and the only HPET interaction was comparator 0 running in NO_HZ mode.  (System rebooted because the TCO watchdog fired.  More user tasks than just my X11 desktop had stopped running...)  One theory is that it's caused by recent RCU updates.
Comment 20 Alan 2010-01-19 20:04:34 UTC
Status ?
Comment 21 David Brownell 2010-01-26 01:57:03 UTC
Status?  Don't know that anyone's looked at this recently.  Best workaround is to never use that emulation logic; unfortunately, that doesn't make a good default (one wants HPET clocksources).

There were some mostly-working patches to use real UIE interrupts, filtered through ACPI, that got broken (can't apply any more) by some strange rtc-cmos changes that somehow got merged ... plus of course by those ACPI IRQ handling bugs.  (I don't think Linux uses that IRQ mechanism much at all -- don't know about MS-Windows -- making broken ACPI behavior there be less of a surprise than usual.)

If the ACPI IRQs worked OK, I'd almost suggest just using them all the time instead of "native" RTC IRQs ... where "almost" is constrained by me thinking it's bad to make this driver becine PC-specific (and depend on ACPI).  But some folk seem to believe that's the way to go.  Maybe they're right, but in that case there'd need to be an almost-identical driver for other MC146818 clones... ugh.

Another solution might be fixing HPET's emulation code itself, not just its interaction with the RTC code.
Comment 22 Alan 2012-10-30 14:57:16 UTC
If this is still seen on modern kernels then please re-open/update
Comment 23 W Unruh 2012-10-30 15:36:19 UTC
On Tue, 30 Oct 2012, bugzilla-daemon@bugzilla.kernel.org wrote:

> https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11153
>
>
>
>
>
> --- Comment #22 from Alan <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>  2012-10-30 14:57:16 ---
> If this is still seen on modern kernels then please re-open/update
>
>


I love this response to bug reports. do nothing for years, and then ask the OP
whether the problem is still there. We spend time and effort to report bugs
and all we get is further requests to test, not in order to fix but in order
to for us to determine if the problem is still there. It is like companies who
have a complaint line, (never an 800 line) where you get put on hold for hours
racking up costs on your telco bill.
Comment 24 Oswald Buddenhagen 2014-06-01 12:33:49 UTC
would somebody with the necessary permissions bother to re-open this report?
the git log has some evidence that some work might have been done on acpi interrupts (i didn't look too closely).
however, there is no indication that the hpet code has been adjusted in any way. therefore it does not seem that this report is obsolete at all.