Unified tracing buffer

[KOSAKI Motohiro]

> > I can't imazine a merit of the single-channel mode.
> > Could you please explain it?
> 
> Actually, single-channel mode is for not-frequently event tracing.
> At least systemtap case, sometimes we just want to collect data
> and watch it periodically(as like as 'top'). Or, just monitoring
> errors as additional printk. in these cases, overhead is not so
> important.
> 
> I think the main reason of using single-channel mode is simplicity of
> userspace reader. We can use 'cat' or 'tail' to read the buffer on-line.
> I'm not sure how much overhead ftrace-like buffer merging routine has,
> but if kernel provides an interface which gives us single-merged buffer
> image(like ftrace buffer), we are grad to use it. :-)

Yup, I also think it is better.

Thanks.