diff --git a/arch/mips/include/asm/io.h b/arch/mips/include/asm/io.h
index 06049b6..5dfae80 100644
--- a/arch/mips/include/asm/io.h
+++ b/arch/mips/include/asm/io.h
@@ -60,21 +60,11 @@
  * instruction, so the lower 16 bits must be zero.  Should be true on
  * on any sane architecture; generic code does not use this assumption.
  */
-extern const unsigned long mips_io_port_base;
+extern unsigned long mips_io_port_base;
 
-/*
- * Gcc will generate code to load the value of mips_io_port_base after each
- * function call which may be fairly wasteful in some cases.  So we don't
- * play quite by the book.  We tell gcc mips_io_port_base is a long variable
- * which solves the code generation issue.  Now we need to violate the
- * aliasing rules a little to make initialization possible and finally we
- * will need the barrier() to fight side effects of the aliasing chat.
- * This trickery will eventually collapse under gcc's optimizer.  Oh well.
- */
 static inline void set_io_port_base(unsigned long base)
 {
-	* (unsigned long *) &mips_io_port_base = base;
-	barrier();
+	mips_io_port_base = base;
 }
 
 /*
diff --git a/arch/mips/kernel/setup.c b/arch/mips/kernel/setup.c
index 6959503..7cc1d29 100644
--- a/arch/mips/kernel/setup.c
+++ b/arch/mips/kernel/setup.c
@@ -74,7 +74,7 @@
  * mips_io_port_base is the begin of the address space to which x86 style
  * I/O ports are mapped.
  */
-const unsigned long mips_io_port_base = -1;
+unsigned long mips_io_port_base = -1;
 EXPORT_SYMBOL(mips_io_port_base);
 
 static struct resource code_resource = { .name = "Kernel code", };