Re: [RFC][PATCH] p54: fix memory management

[Christian Lamparter <chunkeey@web.de>]

On Friday 03 October 2008 04:43:00 Larry Finger wrote:
> Christian Lamparter wrote:
> Oct  2 17:22:52 larrylap kernel: BUG: unable to handle kernel NULL
> pointer dereference at 0000000000000000
[...]

> [...] Tainted: GM

> Note, the "tainted" flag is false. No closed-source drivers have been
> loaded.
>

more about the flags can be found in Documentation/oops-tracing.txt:

  1: 'G' if all modules loaded have a GPL or compatible license, 'P' if
     any proprietary module has been loaded.  Modules without a
     MODULE_LICENSE or with a MODULE_LICENSE that is not recognised by
     insmod as GPL compatible are assumed to be proprietary.
[...]
  5: 'M' if any processor has reported a Machine Check Exception,
     ' ' if no Machine Check Exceptions have occurred.

so:
- the "G" flag is perfectly OK! (P would be the "closed-source" drivers)

- however, the "M"(CE) flag is worryingly. The question is, if p54 causes it, or not? 
  As far as I know, when a MCE gets logged a short message should pop up
  in the kernel's log and next you'll need extra tools like mcelog to see what's
  going wrong.

Regards,
	Chr