More Complex Assembly Code Gets Ported To C In Linux 4.6

[phoronix]

Phoronix: More Complex Assembly Code Gets Ported To C In Linux 4.6

In recent kernel cycles we've seen more and more x86 Assembly code get rewritten in C and for Linux 4.6 this process has continued...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-4.6-x86-ASM-Changes

[plonoma]

Some statistics about the assembly code would be interesting to have read.
Statistics such as how many lines of asm code have been removed and how many are left would.

[pipe13]

Read the linked pull request. It probably isn't as simple as that.

[rabcor]

Why are they doing this? Just to remove the human error factor that is significantly higher in Assembly than in C? Or for greater portability so as not to be as bound to the x86 platform by including assembly code (i.e. to allow compilers to handle compiling the kernel for non-x86 targets better) or what?

[SaucyJack]

Why are they doing this? Just to remove the human error factor that is significantly higher in Assembly than in C? Or for greater portability so as not to be as bound to the x86 platform by including assembly code (i.e. to allow compilers to handle compiling the kernel for non-x86 targets better) or what?

Performance, portability, maintainability.