Third Version Of Linux Atomic Console Support Posted

Posted on Sunday was the third iteration of the patches working toward the threaded/atomic non-blocking console "NBCON" support that is known to be one of the last blockers to sort out before the remainder of the Linux real-time "RT" patches can be upstreamed.

For the past two years or so Linux developers have been working on threaded console support as it's needed for getting Linux RT support over the finish line. Sunday brought the third iteration of the patches working on wiring up the atomic console printing functionality.

This current patch series though does not include threaded printing or NBCON drivers as they will be sent by separate patch series. This updated patch series switches from using CPU states to instead tracking per-CPU emergency nesting, renames various functions, better handles emergency mode for a CPU, improvements for handling legacy consoles, NBCON flushing changes, documentation improvements, and other changes.

Those interested can find the 26 patches making up this printk patch series on the kernel mailing list. Hopefully in 2024 we'll see the NBCON console support sorted out and ideally finally see the real-time (RT) support mainlined for Linux.