Messages in this thread | | | From | (H. Peter Anvin) | Subject | Re: DMA memory shortage? | Date | 10 Dec 1998 23:06:08 GMT |
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Followup to: <Pine.LNX.3.96.981209145740.2691A-100000@biznatch.nick.org> By author: "Nicholas M. Kirsch" <nkirsch@biznatch.nick.org> In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel > > I'm running kernel version 2.1.130 on a Dual PPro. Everything has worked > beautifully until today, when I got this while trying to format a floppy : > > yoda:/tmp# mkfs.msdos /dev/fd0 > mkfs.msdos 0.4, 27th February 1997 for MS-DOS/FAT/FAT32 FS > DMA memory shortage. Temporarily falling back on virtual DMA > mkfs.msdos: unable to open /dev/fd0 > > I have 320 MB of memory, so this is very odd. > > total used free shared buffers cached > Mem: 322052 321000 1052 16392 172216 116576 > -/+ buffers/cache: 32208 289844 > Swap: 0 0 0 > > I have no I/O processes running, just two highly CPU intensive tasks, but > they have priority 20. >
This is very common if you have large amounts of memory, since only the first 16 MB is usable for ISA DMA. I think if you have enough memory I think it is the right thing to save a pool of DMA-capable pages for that purpose only; I have been meaning to implement such a hack.
-hpa
-- PGP: 2047/2A960705 BA 03 D3 2C 14 A8 A8 BD 1E DF FE 69 EE 35 BD 74 See http://www.zytor.com/~hpa/ for web page and full PGP public key I am Bahá'í -- ask me about it or see http://www.bahai.org/ "To love another person is to see the face of God." -- Les Misérables
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