Messages in this thread | | | Date | Thu, 14 Nov 2002 14:28:32 -0500 | From | Jeff Garzik <> | Subject | Re: [patch] remove hugetlb syscalls |
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David Mosberger-Tang wrote:
> But that's excactly the point. The hugepage interface returns a > different kind of virtual memory. There are tons of programs out > there using mmap(). If such a program gets fed a path to the > hugepagefs, it might end up with huge pages without knowing anything > about huge pages. For the most part, that might work fine, but it > could lead to subtle failures.
Yeah, that was one of Linus's points about the syscalls, in a private email. I mentioned how the new syscalls were in poor taste, when existing syscalls would work fine, and he flamed me right back ;-)
One of his main points to me was exactly what you are elucidating: there are subtle differences between normal pages and superpages that are exposed to userland, and we should make that explicit [with the syscalls] rather than hide it [with hugetlbfs/mmap/etc.]. So I think this is further indication Linus has a very valid point ;-)
However, that said, I think hugetlbfs will almost always get used in preference to the syscalls, so leaving them in may be more a statement of technical correctness/cleanliness than anything else.
[tangent warning] This whole hugetlb affair is unfortunately pretty ugly, and this thread is just one component of that. All these discussions occurred off-list, and it's _still_ a political football. Sigh. I just hope that the furor dies down soon, that smart technical [apolitical] decisions are made, and future discussions are at least CC'd to lkml.
Jeff
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