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-rw-r--r--Documentation/ABI/obsolete/sysfs-firmware-acpi8
-rw-r--r--Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-block10
-rw-r--r--Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-firmware-acpi10
-rw-r--r--Documentation/acpi/dsd/graph.txt162
-rw-r--r--Documentation/acpi/linuxized-acpica.txt10
-rw-r--r--Documentation/block/00-INDEX2
-rw-r--r--Documentation/block/bfq-iosched.txt531
-rw-r--r--Documentation/block/kyber-iosched.txt14
-rw-r--r--Documentation/block/queue-sysfs.txt11
-rw-r--r--Documentation/blockdev/mflash.txt84
-rw-r--r--Documentation/devicetree/bindings/ata/ahci-dm816.txt21
-rw-r--r--Documentation/devicetree/bindings/hwmon/ads7828.txt25
-rw-r--r--Documentation/devicetree/bindings/hwmon/aspeed-pwm-tacho.txt68
-rw-r--r--Documentation/devicetree/bindings/hwmon/lm87.txt30
-rw-r--r--Documentation/devicetree/bindings/ipmi/aspeed,ast2400-ibt-bmc.txt4
-rw-r--r--Documentation/devicetree/bindings/leds/leds-cpcap.txt29
-rw-r--r--Documentation/devicetree/bindings/leds/leds-mt6323.txt60
-rw-r--r--Documentation/devicetree/bindings/leds/leds-pca9532.txt10
-rw-r--r--Documentation/devicetree/bindings/mailbox/brcm,iproc-flexrm-mbox.txt59
-rw-r--r--Documentation/devicetree/bindings/mailbox/brcm,iproc-pdc-mbox.txt6
-rw-r--r--Documentation/devicetree/bindings/power/power_domain.txt4
-rw-r--r--Documentation/devicetree/bindings/power/reset/gemini-poweroff.txt17
-rw-r--r--Documentation/devicetree/bindings/power/reset/syscon-poweroff.txt11
-rw-r--r--Documentation/devicetree/bindings/power/rockchip-io-domain.txt1
-rw-r--r--Documentation/devicetree/bindings/power/supply/cpcap-charger.txt37
-rw-r--r--Documentation/devicetree/bindings/power/supply/lego_ev3_battery.txt21
-rw-r--r--Documentation/devicetree/bindings/power/supply/ltc2941.txt6
-rw-r--r--Documentation/devicetree/bindings/power/supply/max8925_battery.txt (renamed from Documentation/devicetree/bindings/power/supply/max8925_batter.txt)0
-rw-r--r--Documentation/devicetree/bindings/vendor-prefixes.txt1
-rw-r--r--Documentation/hwmon/aspeed-pwm-tacho22
-rw-r--r--Documentation/hwmon/tc6542
-rw-r--r--Documentation/lightnvm/pblk.txt21
-rw-r--r--Documentation/power/runtime_pm.txt19
33 files changed, 1188 insertions, 128 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/ABI/obsolete/sysfs-firmware-acpi b/Documentation/ABI/obsolete/sysfs-firmware-acpi
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..6715a71bec3d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/ABI/obsolete/sysfs-firmware-acpi
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+What: /sys/firmware/acpi/hotplug/force_remove
+Date: Mar 2017
+Contact: Rafael J. Wysocki <rafael.j.wysocki@intel.com>
+Description:
+ Since the force_remove is inherently broken and dangerous to
+ use for some hotplugable resources like memory (because ignoring
+ the offline failure might lead to memory corruption and crashes)
+ enabling this knob is not safe and thus unsupported.
diff --git a/Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-block b/Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-block
index 2da04ce6aeef..dea212db9df3 100644
--- a/Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-block
+++ b/Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-block
@@ -213,14 +213,8 @@ What: /sys/block/<disk>/queue/discard_zeroes_data
Date: May 2011
Contact: Martin K. Petersen <martin.petersen@oracle.com>
Description:
- Devices that support discard functionality may return
- stale or random data when a previously discarded block
- is read back. This can cause problems if the filesystem
- expects discarded blocks to be explicitly cleared. If a
- device reports that it deterministically returns zeroes
- when a discarded area is read the discard_zeroes_data
- parameter will be set to one. Otherwise it will be 0 and
- the result of reading a discarded area is undefined.
+ Will always return 0. Don't rely on any specific behavior
+ for discards, and don't read this file.
What: /sys/block/<disk>/queue/write_same_max_bytes
Date: January 2012
diff --git a/Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-firmware-acpi b/Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-firmware-acpi
index c7fc72d4495c..613f42a9d5cd 100644
--- a/Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-firmware-acpi
+++ b/Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-firmware-acpi
@@ -44,16 +44,6 @@ Description:
or 0 (unset). Attempts to write any other values to it will
cause -EINVAL to be returned.
-What: /sys/firmware/acpi/hotplug/force_remove
-Date: May 2013
-Contact: Rafael J. Wysocki <rafael.j.wysocki@intel.com>
-Description:
- The number in this file (0 or 1) determines whether (1) or not
- (0) the ACPI subsystem will allow devices to be hot-removed even
- if they cannot be put offline gracefully (from the kernel's
- viewpoint). That number can be changed by writing a boolean
- value to this file.
-
What: /sys/firmware/acpi/interrupts/
Date: February 2008
Contact: Len Brown <lenb@kernel.org>
diff --git a/Documentation/acpi/dsd/graph.txt b/Documentation/acpi/dsd/graph.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..ac09e3138b79
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/acpi/dsd/graph.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,162 @@
+Graphs
+
+
+_DSD
+----
+
+_DSD (Device Specific Data) [7] is a predefined ACPI device
+configuration object that can be used to convey information on
+hardware features which are not specifically covered by the ACPI
+specification [1][6]. There are two _DSD extensions that are relevant
+for graphs: property [4] and hierarchical data extensions [5]. The
+property extension provides generic key-value pairs whereas the
+hierarchical data extension supports nodes with references to other
+nodes, forming a tree. The nodes in the tree may contain properties as
+defined by the property extension. The two extensions together provide
+a tree-like structure with zero or more properties (key-value pairs)
+in each node of the tree.
+
+The data structure may be accessed at runtime by using the device_*
+and fwnode_* functions defined in include/linux/fwnode.h .
+
+Fwnode represents a generic firmware node object. It is independent on
+the firmware type. In ACPI, fwnodes are _DSD hierarchical data
+extensions objects. A device's _DSD object is represented by an
+fwnode.
+
+The data structure may be referenced to elsewhere in the ACPI tables
+by using a hard reference to the device itself and an index to the
+hierarchical data extension array on each depth.
+
+
+Ports and endpoints
+-------------------
+
+The port and endpoint concepts are very similar to those in Devicetree
+[3]. A port represents an interface in a device, and an endpoint
+represents a connection to that interface.
+
+All port nodes are located under the device's "_DSD" node in the
+hierarchical data extension tree. The property extension related to
+each port node must contain the key "port" and an integer value which
+is the number of the port. The object it refers to should be called "PRTX",
+where "X" is the number of the port.
+
+Further on, endpoints are located under the individual port nodes. The
+first hierarchical data extension package list entry of the endpoint
+nodes must begin with "endpoint" and must be followed by the number
+of the endpoint. The object it refers to should be called "EPXY", where
+"X" is the number of the port and "Y" is the number of the endpoint.
+
+Each port node contains a property extension key "port", the value of
+which is the number of the port node. The each endpoint is similarly numbered
+with a property extension key "endpoint". Port numbers must be unique within a
+device and endpoint numbers must be unique within a port.
+
+The endpoint reference uses property extension with "remote-endpoint" property
+name followed by a reference in the same package. Such references consist of the
+the remote device reference, number of the port in the device and finally the
+number of the endpoint in that port. Individual references thus appear as:
+
+ Package() { device, port_number, endpoint_number }
+
+The references to endpoints must be always done both ways, to the
+remote endpoint and back from the referred remote endpoint node.
+
+A simple example of this is show below:
+
+ Scope (\_SB.PCI0.I2C2)
+ {
+ Device (CAM0)
+ {
+ Name (_DSD, Package () {
+ ToUUID("daffd814-6eba-4d8c-8a91-bc9bbf4aa301"),
+ Package () {
+ Package () { "compatible", Package () { "nokia,smia" } },
+ },
+ ToUUID("dbb8e3e6-5886-4ba6-8795-1319f52a966b"),
+ Package () {
+ Package () { "port0", "PRT0" },
+ }
+ })
+ Name (PRT0, Package() {
+ ToUUID("daffd814-6eba-4d8c-8a91-bc9bbf4aa301"),
+ Package () {
+ Package () { "port", 0 },
+ },
+ ToUUID("dbb8e3e6-5886-4ba6-8795-1319f52a966b"),
+ Package () {
+ Package () { "endpoint0", "EP00" },
+ }
+ })
+ Name (EP00, Package() {
+ ToUUID("daffd814-6eba-4d8c-8a91-bc9bbf4aa301"),
+ Package () {
+ Package () { "endpoint", 0 },
+ Package () { "remote-endpoint", Package() { \_SB.PCI0.ISP, 4, 0 } },
+ }
+ })
+ }
+ }
+
+ Scope (\_SB.PCI0)
+ {
+ Device (ISP)
+ {
+ Name (_DSD, Package () {
+ ToUUID("dbb8e3e6-5886-4ba6-8795-1319f52a966b"),
+ Package () {
+ Package () { "port4", "PRT4" },
+ }
+ })
+
+ Name (PRT4, Package() {
+ ToUUID("daffd814-6eba-4d8c-8a91-bc9bbf4aa301"),
+ Package () {
+ Package () { "port", 4 }, /* CSI-2 port number */
+ },
+ ToUUID("dbb8e3e6-5886-4ba6-8795-1319f52a966b"),
+ Package () {
+ Package () { "endpoint0", "EP40" },
+ }
+ })
+
+ Name (EP40, Package() {
+ ToUUID("daffd814-6eba-4d8c-8a91-bc9bbf4aa301"),
+ Package () {
+ Package () { "endpoint", 0 },
+ Package () { "remote-endpoint", Package () { \_SB.PCI0.I2C2.CAM0, 0, 0 } },
+ }
+ })
+ }
+ }
+
+Here, the port 0 of the "CAM0" device is connected to the port 4 of
+the "ISP" device and vice versa.
+
+
+References
+----------
+
+[1] _DSD (Device Specific Data) Implementation Guide.
+ <URL:http://www.uefi.org/sites/default/files/resources/_DSD-implementation-guide-toplevel-1_1.htm>,
+ referenced 2016-10-03.
+
+[2] Devicetree. <URL:http://www.devicetree.org>, referenced 2016-10-03.
+
+[3] Documentation/devicetree/bindings/graph.txt
+
+[4] Device Properties UUID For _DSD.
+ <URL:http://www.uefi.org/sites/default/files/resources/_DSD-device-properties-UUID.pdf>,
+ referenced 2016-10-04.
+
+[5] Hierarchical Data Extension UUID For _DSD.
+ <URL:http://www.uefi.org/sites/default/files/resources/_DSD-hierarchical-data-extension-UUID-v1.pdf>,
+ referenced 2016-10-04.
+
+[6] Advanced Configuration and Power Interface Specification.
+ <URL:http://www.uefi.org/sites/default/files/resources/ACPI_6_1.pdf>,
+ referenced 2016-10-04.
+
+[7] _DSD Device Properties Usage Rules.
+ Documentation/acpi/DSD-properties-rules.txt
diff --git a/Documentation/acpi/linuxized-acpica.txt b/Documentation/acpi/linuxized-acpica.txt
index defe2eec5331..3ad7b0dfb083 100644
--- a/Documentation/acpi/linuxized-acpica.txt
+++ b/Documentation/acpi/linuxized-acpica.txt
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ upstream.
The homepage of ACPICA project is: www.acpica.org, it is maintained and
supported by Intel Corporation.
- The following figure depicts the Linux ACPI subystem where the ACPICA
+ The following figure depicts the Linux ACPI subsystem where the ACPICA
adaptation is included:
+---------------------------------------------------------+
@@ -110,7 +110,7 @@ upstream.
Linux patches. The patches generated by this process are referred to as
"linuxized ACPICA patches". The release process is carried out on a local
copy the ACPICA git repository. Each commit in the monthly release is
- converted into a linuxized ACPICA patch. Together, they form the montly
+ converted into a linuxized ACPICA patch. Together, they form the monthly
ACPICA release patchset for the Linux ACPI community. This process is
illustrated in the following figure:
@@ -165,7 +165,7 @@ upstream.
<http://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git>.
Before the linuxized ACPICA patches are sent to the Linux ACPI community
- for review, there is a quality ensurance build test process to reduce
+ for review, there is a quality assurance build test process to reduce
porting issues. Currently this build process only takes care of the
following kernel configuration options:
CONFIG_ACPI/CONFIG_ACPI_DEBUG/CONFIG_ACPI_DEBUGGER
@@ -195,12 +195,12 @@ upstream.
release utilities (please refer to Section 4 below for the details).
3. Linux specific features - Sometimes it's impossible to use the
current ACPICA APIs to implement features required by the Linux kernel,
- so Linux developers occasionaly have to change ACPICA code directly.
+ so Linux developers occasionally have to change ACPICA code directly.
Those changes may not be acceptable by ACPICA upstream and in such cases
they are left as committed ACPICA divergences unless the ACPICA side can
implement new mechanisms as replacements for them.
4. ACPICA release fixups - ACPICA only tests commits using a set of the
- user space simulation utilies, thus the linuxized ACPICA patches may
+ user space simulation utilities, thus the linuxized ACPICA patches may
break the Linux kernel, leaving us build/boot failures. In order to
avoid breaking Linux bisection, fixes are applied directly to the
linuxized ACPICA patches during the release process. When the release
diff --git a/Documentation/block/00-INDEX b/Documentation/block/00-INDEX
index e55103ace382..8d55b4bbb5e2 100644
--- a/Documentation/block/00-INDEX
+++ b/Documentation/block/00-INDEX
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
00-INDEX
- This file
+bfq-iosched.txt
+ - BFQ IO scheduler and its tunables
biodoc.txt
- Notes on the Generic Block Layer Rewrite in Linux 2.5
biovecs.txt
diff --git a/Documentation/block/bfq-iosched.txt b/Documentation/block/bfq-iosched.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..1b87df6cd476
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/block/bfq-iosched.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,531 @@
+BFQ (Budget Fair Queueing)
+==========================
+
+BFQ is a proportional-share I/O scheduler, with some extra
+low-latency capabilities. In addition to cgroups support (blkio or io
+controllers), BFQ's main features are:
+- BFQ guarantees a high system and application responsiveness, and a
+ low latency for time-sensitive applications, such as audio or video
+ players;
+- BFQ distributes bandwidth, and not just time, among processes or
+ groups (switching back to time distribution when needed to keep
+ throughput high).
+
+On average CPUs, the current version of BFQ can handle devices
+performing at most ~30K IOPS; at most ~50 KIOPS on faster CPUs. As a
+reference, 30-50 KIOPS correspond to very high bandwidths with
+sequential I/O (e.g., 8-12 GB/s if I/O requests are 256 KB large), and
+to 120-200 MB/s with 4KB random I/O. BFQ has not yet been tested on
+multi-queue devices.
+
+The table of contents follow. Impatients can just jump to Section 3.
+
+CONTENTS
+
+1. When may BFQ be useful?
+ 1-1 Personal systems
+ 1-2 Server systems
+2. How does BFQ work?
+3. What are BFQ's tunable?
+4. BFQ group scheduling
+ 4-1 Service guarantees provided
+ 4-2 Interface
+
+1. When may BFQ be useful?
+==========================
+
+BFQ provides the following benefits on personal and server systems.
+
+1-1 Personal systems
+--------------------
+
+Low latency for interactive applications
+
+Regardless of the actual background workload, BFQ guarantees that, for
+interactive tasks, the storage device is virtually as responsive as if
+it was idle. For example, even if one or more of the following
+background workloads are being executed:
+- one or more large files are being read, written or copied,
+- a tree of source files is being compiled,
+- one or more virtual machines are performing I/O,
+- a software update is in progress,
+- indexing daemons are scanning filesystems and updating their
+ databases,
+starting an application or loading a file from within an application
+takes about the same time as if the storage device was idle. As a
+comparison, with CFQ, NOOP or DEADLINE, and in the same conditions,
+applications experience high latencies, or even become unresponsive
+until the background workload terminates (also on SSDs).
+
+Low latency for soft real-time applications
+
+Also soft real-time applications, such as audio and video
+players/streamers, enjoy a low latency and a low drop rate, regardless
+of the background I/O workload. As a consequence, these applications
+do not suffer from almost any glitch due to the background workload.
+
+Higher speed for code-development tasks
+
+If some additional workload happens to be executed in parallel, then
+BFQ executes the I/O-related components of typical code-development
+tasks (compilation, checkout, merge, ...) much more quickly than CFQ,
+NOOP or DEADLINE.
+
+High throughput
+
+On hard disks, BFQ achieves up to 30% higher throughput than CFQ, and
+up to 150% higher throughput than DEADLINE and NOOP, with all the
+sequential workloads considered in our tests. With random workloads,
+and with all the workloads on flash-based devices, BFQ achieves,
+instead, about the same throughput as the other schedulers.
+
+Strong fairness, bandwidth and delay guarantees
+
+BFQ distributes the device throughput, and not just the device time,
+among I/O-bound applications in proportion their weights, with any
+workload and regardless of the device parameters. From these bandwidth
+guarantees, it is possible to compute tight per-I/O-request delay
+guarantees by a simple formula. If not configured for strict service
+guarantees, BFQ switches to time-based resource sharing (only) for
+applications that would otherwise cause a throughput loss.
+
+1-2 Server systems
+------------------
+
+Most benefits for server systems follow from the same service
+properties as above. In particular, regardless of whether additional,
+possibly heavy workloads are being served, BFQ guarantees:
+
+. audio and video-streaming with zero or very low jitter and drop
+ rate;
+
+. fast retrieval of WEB pages and embedded objects;
+
+. real-time recording of data in live-dumping applications (e.g.,
+ packet logging);
+
+. responsiveness in local and remote access to a server.
+
+
+2. How does BFQ work?
+=====================
+
+BFQ is a proportional-share I/O scheduler, whose general structure,
+plus a lot of code, are borrowed from CFQ.
+
+- Each process doing I/O on a device is associated with a weight and a
+ (bfq_)queue.
+
+- BFQ grants exclusive access to the device, for a while, to one queue
+ (process) at a time, and implements this service model by
+ associating every queue with a budget, measured in number of
+ sectors.
+
+ - After a queue is granted access to the device, the budget of the
+ queue is decremented, on each request dispatch, by the size of the
+ request.
+
+ - The in-service queue is expired, i.e., its service is suspended,
+ only if one of the following events occurs: 1) the queue finishes
+ its budget, 2) the queue empties, 3) a "budget timeout" fires.
+
+ - The budget timeout prevents processes doing random I/O from
+ holding the device for too long and dramatically reducing
+ throughput.
+
+ - Actually, as in CFQ, a queue associated with a process issuing
+ sync requests may not be expired immediately when it empties. In
+ contrast, BFQ may idle the device for a short time interval,
+ giving the process the chance to go on being served if it issues
+ a new request in time. Device idling typically boosts the
+ throughput on rotational devices, if processes do synchronous
+ and sequential I/O. In addition, under BFQ, device idling is
+ also instrumental in guaranteeing the desired throughput
+ fraction to processes issuing sync requests (see the description
+ of the slice_idle tunable in this document, or [1, 2], for more
+ details).
+
+ - With respect to idling for service guarantees, if several
+ processes are competing for the device at the same time, but
+ all processes (and groups, after the following commit) have
+ the same weight, then BFQ guarantees the expected throughput
+ distribution without ever idling the device. Throughput is
+ thus as high as possible in this common scenario.
+
+ - If low-latency mode is enabled (default configuration), BFQ
+ executes some special heuristics to detect interactive and soft
+ real-time applications (e.g., video or audio players/streamers),
+ and to reduce their latency. The most important action taken to
+ achieve this goal is to give to the queues associated with these
+ applications more than their fair share of the device
+ throughput. For brevity, we call just "weight-raising" the whole
+ sets of actions taken by BFQ to privilege these queues. In
+ particular, BFQ provides a milder form of weight-raising for
+ interactive applications, and a stronger form for soft real-time
+ applications.
+
+ - BFQ automatically deactivates idling for queues born in a burst of
+ queue creations. In fact, these queues are usually associated with
+ the processes of applications and services that benefit mostly
+ from a high throughput. Examples are systemd during boot, or git
+ grep.
+
+ - As CFQ, BFQ merges queues performing interleaved I/O, i.e.,
+ performing random I/O that becomes mostly sequential if
+ merged. Differently from CFQ, BFQ achieves this goal with a more
+ reactive mechanism, called Early Queue Merge (EQM). EQM is so
+ responsive in detecting interleaved I/O (cooperating processes),
+ that it enables BFQ to achieve a high throughput, by queue
+ merging, even for queues for which CFQ needs a different
+ mechanism, preemption, to get a high throughput. As such EQM is a
+ unified mechanism to achieve a high throughput with interleaved
+ I/O.
+
+ - Queues are scheduled according to a variant of WF2Q+, named
+ B-WF2Q+, and implemented using an augmented rb-tree to preserve an
+ O(log N) overall complexity. See [2] for more details. B-WF2Q+ is
+ also ready for hierarchical scheduling. However, for a cleaner
+ logical breakdown, the code that enables and completes
+ hierarchical support is provided in the next commit, which focuses
+ exactly on this feature.
+
+ - B-WF2Q+ guarantees a tight deviation with respect to an ideal,
+ perfectly fair, and smooth service. In particular, B-WF2Q+
+ guarantees that each queue receives a fraction of the device
+ throughput proportional to its weight, even if the throughput
+ fluctuates, and regardless of: the device parameters, the current
+ workload and the budgets assigned to the queue.
+
+ - The last, budget-independence, property (although probably
+ counterintuitive in the first place) is definitely beneficial, for
+ the following reasons:
+
+ - First, with any proportional-share scheduler, the maximum
+ deviation with respect to an ideal service is proportional to
+ the maximum budget (slice) assigned to queues. As a consequence,
+ BFQ can keep this deviation tight not only because of the
+ accurate service of B-WF2Q+, but also because BFQ *does not*
+ need to assign a larger budget to a queue to let the queue
+ receive a higher fraction of the device throughput.
+
+ - Second, BFQ is free to choose, for every process (queue), the
+ budget that best fits the needs of the process, or best
+ leverages the I/O pattern of the process. In particular, BFQ
+ updates queue budgets with a simple feedback-loop algorithm that
+ allows a high throughput to be achieved, while still providing
+ tight latency guarantees to time-sensitive applications. When
+ the in-service queue expires, this algorithm computes the next
+ budget of the queue so as to:
+
+ - Let large budgets be eventually assigned to the queues
+ associated with I/O-bound applications performing sequential
+ I/O: in fact, the longer these applications are served once
+ got access to the device, the higher the throughput is.
+
+ - Let small budgets be eventually assigned to the queues
+ associated with time-sensitive applications (which typically
+ perform sporadic and short I/O), because, the smaller the
+ budget assigned to a queue waiting for service is, the sooner
+ B-WF2Q+ will serve that queue (Subsec 3.3 in [2]).
+
+- If several processes are competing for the device at the same time,
+ but all processes and groups have the same weight, then BFQ
+ guarantees the expected throughput distribution without ever idling
+ the device. It uses preemption instead. Throughput is then much
+ higher in this common scenario.
+
+- ioprio classes are served in strict priority order, i.e.,
+ lower-priority queues are not served as long as there are
+ higher-priority queues. Among queues in the same class, the
+ bandwidth is distributed in proportion to the weight of each
+ queue. A very thin extra bandwidth is however guaranteed to
+ the Idle class, to prevent it from starving.
+
+
+3. What are BFQ's tunable?
+==========================
+
+The tunables back_seek-max, back_seek_penalty, fifo_expire_async and
+fifo_expire_sync below are the same as in CFQ. Their description is
+just copied from that for CFQ. Some considerations in the description
+of slice_idle are copied from CFQ too.
+
+per-process ioprio and weight
+-----------------------------
+
+Unless the cgroups interface is used (see "4. BFQ group scheduling"),
+weights can be assigned to processes only indirectly, through I/O
+priorities, and according to the relation:
+weight = (IOPRIO_BE_NR - ioprio) * 10.
+
+Beware that, if low-latency is set, then BFQ automatically raises the
+weight of the queues associated with interactive and soft real-time
+applications. Unset this tunable if you need/want to control weights.
+
+slice_idle
+----------
+
+This parameter specifies how long BFQ should idle for next I/O
+request, when certain sync BFQ queues become empty. By default
+slice_idle is a non-zero value. Idling has a double purpose: boosting
+throughput and making sure that the desired throughput distribution is
+respected (see the description of how BFQ works, and, if needed, the
+papers referred there).
+
+As for throughput, idling can be very helpful on highly seeky media
+like single spindle SATA/SAS disks where we can cut down on overall
+number of seeks and see improved throughput.
+
+Setting slice_idle to 0 will remove all the idling on queues and one
+should see an overall improved throughput on faster storage devices
+like multiple SATA/SAS disks in hardware RAID configuration.
+
+So depending on storage and workload, it might be useful to set
+slice_idle=0. In general for SATA/SAS disks and software RAID of
+SATA/SAS disks keeping slice_idle enabled should be useful. For any
+configurations where there are multiple spindles behind single LUN
+(Host based hardware RAID controller or for storage arrays), setting
+slice_idle=0 might end up in better throughput and acceptable
+latencies.
+
+Idling is however necessary to have service guarantees enforced in
+case of differentiated weights or differentiated I/O-request lengths.
+To see why, suppose that a given BFQ queue A must get several I/O
+requests served for each request served for another queue B. Idling
+ensures that, if A makes a new I/O request slightly after becoming
+empty, then no request of B is dispatched in the middle, and thus A
+does not lose the possibility to get more than one request dispatched
+before the next request of B is dispatched. Note that idling
+guarantees the desired differentiated treatment of queues only in
+terms of I/O-request dispatches. To guarantee that the actual service
+order then corresponds to the dispatch order, the strict_guarantees
+tunable must be set too.
+
+There is an important flipside for idling: apart from the above cases
+where it is beneficial also for throughput, idling can severely impact
+throughput. One important case is random workload. Because of this
+issue, BFQ tends to avoid idling as much as possible, when it is not
+beneficial also for throughput. As a consequence of this behavior, and
+of further issues described for the strict_guarantees tunable,
+short-term service guarantees may be occasionally violated. And, in
+some cases, these guarantees may be more important than guaranteeing
+maximum throughput. For example, in video playing/streaming, a very
+low drop rate may be more important than maximum throughput. In these
+cases, consider setting the strict_guarantees parameter.
+
+strict_guarantees
+-----------------
+
+If this parameter is set (default: unset), then BFQ
+
+- always performs idling when the in-service queue becomes empty;
+
+- forces the device to serve one I/O request at a time, by dispatching a
+ new request only if there is no outstanding request.
+
+In the presence of differentiated weights or I/O-request sizes, both
+the above conditions are needed to guarantee that every BFQ queue
+receives its allotted share of the bandwidth. The first condition is
+needed for the reasons explained in the description of the slice_idle
+tunable. The second condition is needed because all modern storage
+devices reorder internally-queued requests, which may trivially break
+the service guarantees enforced by the I/O scheduler.
+
+Setting strict_guarantees may evidently affect throughput.
+
+back_seek_max
+-------------
+
+This specifies, given in Kbytes, the maximum "distance" for backward seeking.
+The distance is the amount of space from the current head location to the
+sectors that are backward in terms of distance.
+
+This parameter allows the scheduler to anticipate requests in the "backward"
+direction and consider them as being the "next" if they are within this
+distance from the current head location.
+
+back_seek_penalty
+-----------------
+
+This parameter is used to compute the cost of backward seeking. If the
+backward distance of request is just 1/back_seek_penalty from a "front"
+request, then the seeking cost of two requests is considered equivalent.
+
+So scheduler will not bias toward one or the other request (otherwise scheduler
+will bias toward front request). Default value of back_seek_penalty is 2.
+
+fifo_expire_async
+-----------------
+
+This parameter is used to set the timeout of asynchronous requests. Default
+value of this is 248ms.
+
+fifo_expire_sync
+----------------
+
+This parameter is used to set the timeout of synchronous requests. Default
+value of this is 124ms. In case to favor synchronous requests over asynchronous
+one, t