Re: [PATCH v4 0/2] mm/highmem: make kmap cache coloring aware

[Joshua Kinard <kumba@gentoo.org>]

On 08/25/2014 20:36, David Daney wrote:
> On 08/25/2014 04:55 PM, Joshua Kinard wrote:
>> On 08/25/2014 13:16, Ralf Baechle wrote:
>>> On Sat, Aug 02, 2014 at 05:11:37AM +0400, Max Filippov wrote:
>>>
>>>> this series adds mapping color control to the generic kmap code, allowing
>>>> architectures with aliasing VIPT cache to use high memory. There's also
>>>> use example of this new interface by xtensa.
>>>
>>> I haven't actually ported this to MIPS but it certainly appears to be
>>> the right framework to get highmem aliases handled on MIPS, too.
>>>
>>> Though I still consider increasing PAGE_SIZE to 16k the preferable
>>> solution because it will entirly do away with cache aliases.
>>
>> Won't setting PAGE_SIZE to 16k break some existing userlands (o32)?  I use a
>> 4k PAGE_SIZE because the last few times I've tried 16k or 64k, init won't
>> load (SIGSEGVs or such, which panicks the kernel).
>>
> 
> It isn't supposed to break things.  Using "stock" toolchains should result
> in executables that will run with any page size.
> 
> In the past, some geniuses came up with some linker (ld) patches that, in
> order to save a few KB of RAM, produced executables that ran only on 4K pages.
> 
> There were some equally astute Debian emacs package maintainers that were
> carrying emacs patches into Debian that would not work on non-4K page size
> systems.
> 
> That said, I think such thinking should be punished.  The punishment should
> be to not have their software run when we select non-4K page sizes.  The
> vast majority of prepackaged software runs just fine with a larger page size.

Well, it does appear to mostly work now w/ 16k PAGE_SIZE.  The Octane booted
into userland with just a couple of "illegal instruction" errors from 'rm'
and 'mdadm'.  I wonder if that's tied to a hardcoded PAGE_SIZE somewhere.
Have to dig around and find something that reproduces the problem on demand.

-- 
Joshua Kinard
Gentoo/MIPS
kumba@gentoo.org
4096R/D25D95E3 2011-03-28

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