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From: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
To: David Rientjes <rientjes@google.com>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>,
	Casey Dahlin <cdahlin@redhat.com>,
	x86@kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [patch] x86: allow ZONE_DMA to be configurable
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2010 17:23:43 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <4CB64D8F.9080800@zytor.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.2.00.1010131713160.24646@chino.kir.corp.google.com>

On 10/13/2010 05:15 PM, David Rientjes wrote:
> ZONE_DMA is unnecessary for a large number of machines that do not
> require addressing in the lower 16MB of memory because they do not use
> ISA devices with 16-bit address registers (plus one page byte register).
> 
> This patch allows users to disable ZONE_DMA for x86 if they know they
> will not be using such devices with their kernel.
> 
> This prevents the VM from unnecessarily reserving a ratio of memory
> (defaulting to 1/256th of system capacity) with lowmem_reserve_ratio
> for such allocations when it will never be used.

This isn't true.

There are many, many devices other than ISA devices which need access to
a restricted-memory pool because of hardware DMA limitations.  This
seems like a really bad idea.

A much better idea would be to have a runtime option of setting the
reservation ratio, if recovering no more than 1/66th of a gigabyte
matters so much to you.

	-hpa

  reply	other threads:[~2010-10-14  0:24 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 30+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2010-10-14  0:15 [patch] x86: allow ZONE_DMA to be configurable David Rientjes
2010-10-14  0:23 ` H. Peter Anvin [this message]
2010-10-14  0:42   ` David Rientjes
2010-10-14  0:44     ` H. Peter Anvin
2010-10-14  0:49       ` David Rientjes
2010-10-14  1:21         ` H. Peter Anvin
2010-10-14  1:48           ` David Rientjes
2010-10-14  2:38             ` H. Peter Anvin
2010-10-14  3:55               ` David Rientjes
2010-10-14  4:37             ` H. Peter Anvin
2010-10-14  4:46               ` David Rientjes
2010-10-14 15:38                 ` H. Peter Anvin
2010-10-14 16:00                   ` Pekka Enberg
2010-10-14 17:44                     ` H. Peter Anvin
2010-10-14 18:34                       ` Ingo Molnar
2010-10-14 19:35                         ` Andrew Morton
2010-10-14 20:40                           ` H. Peter Anvin
2010-10-15  3:03                             ` Ingo Molnar
2010-10-15  4:45                               ` H. Peter Anvin
2010-10-15  9:05                               ` David Rientjes
2010-10-15 15:06                                 ` H. Peter Anvin
2010-10-14 22:08                   ` David Rientjes
2010-10-14  8:10 ` Andrew Morton
2010-10-14  8:32   ` KOSAKI Motohiro
2010-10-14 22:15   ` David Rientjes
2010-10-14 22:32     ` Andrew Morton
2010-10-15  3:10       ` Ingo Molnar
2010-10-15  9:11         ` David Rientjes
2010-10-15  9:09       ` David Rientjes
2010-10-21 14:56         ` Christoph Lameter

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