As NR_CPUS might be > 128, and every spining CPU decrements the lock, we need to use more than 8 bits for a spinlock. The current (i386/x86_64) implementations have a (theorical) bug in this area. As the allocated space for spinlock_t is 32 bits, let's use full 32 bits and let the CPUS fight :) Signed-off-by: Eric Dumazet