[PATCH] faster signal handling on x86

Optimize away the unconditional write to debug registers on signal delivery
path.  This is already done on x86_64.

We only need to write to dr7 if there is a breakpoint to re-enable, and 
MOVDR is a serializing instruction, which is expensive.  Getting rid of 
it gets a 33% faster signal delivery path (at least on Xeon - I didn't
test other CPUs, so your gain may vary).

[ Editors note: it's likely only that slow on Netburst.  Serializing is
  not that expensive, but it is likely that writing to %db7 invalidates
  the trace cache, which explains why it's so slow on Xeon - it's not
  just the op itself, it has to re-populate the cache all the time.
					--- Linus ]


Measured delta TSC for three paths on a 2.4GHz Xeon.

1) With unconditional write to dr7 :  800-1000 cycles
2) With conditional write to dr7   :  84-112 cycles
3) With unlikely write to dr7      :  84 cycles

Performance test using divzero microbenchmark (3 million divide by zeros):

With unconditional write:
   7.445 real / 6.136 system
   7.529 real / 6.482 system
   7.541 real / 5.974 system
   7.546 real / 6.217 system
   7.445 real / 6.167 system

With unlikely write:
   5.779 real / 4.518 system
   5.783 real / 4.591 system
   5.552 real / 4.569 system
   5.790 real / 4.528 system
   5.554 real / 4.382 system

That's about a 33% speedup - more than I expected; apparently getting rid
of the serializing instruction makes the do_signal path much faster.

Zachary Amsden (zach@vmware.com)

arch/i386/kernel/signal.c

@@ -600,7 +600,9 @@ int fastcall do_signal(struct pt_regs *regs, sigset_t *oldset)
 		 * have been cleared if the watchpoint triggered
 		 * inside the kernel.
 		 */
-		__asm__("movl %0,%%db7"	: : "r" (current->thread.debugreg[7]));
+		if (unlikely(current->thread.debugreg[7])) {
+			__asm__("movl %0,%%db7"	: : "r" (current->thread.debugreg[7]));
+		}
 
 		/* Whee!  Actually deliver the signal.  */
 		handle_signal(signr, &info, &ka, oldset, regs);