This ensures that a NOP is a NOP and not a random other instruction that
is also a NOP. It allows simplification of dynamic code patching that
wants to verify existing code before writing new instructions (ftrace,
jump_label, static_call, etc..).

Differentiating on NOPs is not a feature.

This pessimises 32bit (DONTCARE) and 32bit on 64bit CPUs (CARELESS).
32bit is not a performance target.

Everything x86_64 since AMD K10 (2007) and Intel IvyBridge (2012) is
fine with using NOPL (as opposed to prefix NOP). And per FEATURE_NOPL
being required for x86_64, all x86_64 CPUs can use NOPL. So stop
caring about NOPs, simplify things and get on with life.

[ The problem seems to be that some uarchs can only decode NOPL on a
single front-end port while others have severe decode penalties for
excessive prefixes. All modern uarchs can handle both, except Atom,
which has prefix penalties. ]

[ Also, much doubt you can actually measure any of this on normal
workloads. ]

After this, FEATURE_NOPL is unused except for required-features for
x86_64. FEATURE_K8 is only used for PTI.

 [ bp: Kernel build measurements showed ~0.3s slowdown on Sandybridge
   which is hardly a slowdown. Get rid of X86_FEATURE_K7, while at it. ]
Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) <peterz@infradead.org>
Signed-off-by: Borislav Petkov <bp@suse.de>
Acked-by: Alexei Starovoitov <alexei.starovoitov@gmail.com> # bpf
Acked-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linuxfoundation.org>
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20210312115749.065275711@infradead.org