Messages in this thread | | | Date | Thu, 9 Dec 1999 21:39:45 +0100 (CET) | From | Rik van Riel <> | Subject | Re: Getting big areas of memory, in 2.3.x? |
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On Thu, 9 Dec 1999, Kanoj Sarcar wrote: > > Ingo Molnar wrote: > > > hm, does anyone have any conceptual problem with a new > > > allocate_largemem(pages) interface in page_alloc.c? It's not terribly hard > > > to scan all bitmaps for available RAM and mark the large memory area > > > allocated and remove all pages from the freelists. Such areas can only be > > > freed via free_largemem(pages). Both calls will be slow, so should be only > > > used at driver initialization time and such. > > > > Would this interface swap out user pages if necessary? That sort of > > interface would be great, and kill a number of hacks floating around out > > there. > > Swapping out user pages is not a sure shot thing unless Linux implements > reverse maps, so that we can track which page is being used by which pte. > > Without rmaps, any possible solution will be quite costly, if not an > outright hack, IMO.
Not only that, we would also need to make sure that no kernel data pages are in the way.
This means we'll need both reverse maps and a "real" zoned allocator. Not a 2.4 thing, I'm afraid :(
Rik -- The Internet is not a network of computers. It is a network of people. That is its real strength.
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