Samples come from kernel space only

[Zhe D. Mo <mo...@cn...>]

Hi,
While we are trying applying oProfile in our Linux system on board, which 
is kernel 2.6.5 and the processor is PowerPC 440, we met a strange problem 
that all timer samples come from kernel space (above 0xc0000000). All 
timer samples in an oProfile session, no matter they are from any 
applications such as 'hello_world' or 'ls' or 'find', are out of addresses 
above 0xc0000000.

We found PowerPC 440 is still not officially supported by oProfile, so we 
can get only timer instead of hardware event. But according to oProfile 
manual, we cannot do any configration for oProfile in timer mode. We do 
not have unitmask for timer mode either, so we cannot set any filter for 
samples from kernel/user mode, just as unitmask in event mode to set 
sample filter.

We are hoping to get user mode samples for profile analysis. Only kernel 
mode timer is not enough. Is there any other locations we should do but we 
missed for timer mode configuration? If there is any filter for address 
space, we have to remove it, but we do not know. Anyone can point out 
where the root cause possibly lies? The kernel is not compiled by our team 
so that I do not know very clear about its config. Thank you very much.

Best Regards,

Mo Zhedong
China Systems and Technology Lab, IBM Shanghai
3rd Floor, No.78, Lane 887, Zu Chong Zhi Road, Zhangjiang High Tech Park,
Shanghai, 201203, China
e-mail: mo...@cn...
Tel: 86-21-61601158*6529