x86/mm/mtrr, pat: Document Write Combining MTRR type effects on PAT / non-PAT pages

As part of the effort to phase out MTRR use document
write-combining MTRR effects on pages with different non-PAT
page attributes flags and different PAT entry values. Extend
arch_phys_wc_add() documentation to clarify power of two sizes /
boundary requirements as we phase out mtrr_add() use.

Lastly hint towards ioremap_uc() for corner cases on device
drivers working with devices with mixed regions where MTRR size
requirements would otherwise not enable write-combining
effective memory types.

Signed-off-by: Luis R. Rodriguez <mcgrof@suse.com>
Signed-off-by: Borislav Petkov <bp@suse.de>
Cc: Andy Lutomirski <luto@amacapital.net>
Cc: Antonino Daplas <adaplas@gmail.com>
Cc: Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>
Cc: Brian Gerst <brgerst@gmail.com>
Cc: Daniel Vetter <daniel.vetter@ffwll.ch>
Cc: Dave Airlie <airlied@redhat.com>
Cc: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com>
Cc: Davidlohr Bueso <dbueso@suse.de>
Cc: Denys Vlasenko <dvlasenk@redhat.com>
Cc: H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com>
Cc: Jean-Christophe Plagniol-Villard <plagnioj@jcrosoft.com>
Cc: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Cc: Juergen Gross <jgross@suse.com>
Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Mel Gorman <mgorman@suse.de>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: Suresh Siddha <sbsiddha@gmail.com>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: Tomi Valkeinen <tomi.valkeinen@ti.com>
Cc: Ville Syrjälä <syrjala@sci.fi>
Cc: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@suse.cz>
Cc: linux-fbdev@vger.kernel.org
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/1430343851-967-3-git-send-email-mcgrof@do-not-panic.com
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/1432628901-18044-10-git-send-email-bp@alien8.de
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>

1 files changed, 15 insertions, 3 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/x86/mtrr.txt b/Documentation/x86/mtrr.txt
index cc071dc333c2..860bc3adc223 100644
--- a/Documentation/x86/mtrr.txt
+++ b/Documentation/x86/mtrr.txt
@@ -1,7 +1,19 @@
 MTRR (Memory Type Range Register) control
-3 Jun 1999
-Richard Gooch
-<rgooch@atnf.csiro.au>
+
+Richard Gooch <rgooch@atnf.csiro.au> - 3 Jun 1999
+Luis R. Rodriguez <mcgrof@do-not-panic.com> - April 9, 2015
+
+===============================================================================
+Phasing out MTRR use
+
+MTRR use is replaced on modern x86 hardware with PAT. Over time the only type
+of effective MTRR that is expected to be supported will be for write-combining.
+As MTRR use is phased out device drivers should use arch_phys_wc_add() to make
+MTRR effective on non-PAT systems while a no-op on PAT enabled systems.
+
+For details refer to Documentation/x86/pat.txt.
+
+===============================================================================
 
   On Intel P6 family processors (Pentium Pro, Pentium II and later)
   the Memory Type Range Registers (MTRRs) may be used to control