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From: Mark Tinguely <tinguely@sgi.com>
To: Dave Chinner <david@fromorbit.com>
Cc: xfs@oss.sgi.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/2] xfs: fix some new memory allocation failures
Date: Tue, 03 Sep 2013 17:38:17 -0500	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <522664D9.8010504@sgi.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20130903211643.GG23571@dastard>

On 09/03/13 16:16, Dave Chinner wrote:
> Let's just quote Linus from 2003, shall we:
>
> http://yarchive.net/comp/linux/vmalloc.html
>
> |>  I think it'd make more sense to only use vmalloc when it's explicitly
> |>  too big for kmalloc - or simply switch on num_online_cpus>  100 or
> |>  whatever a sensible cutoff is (ie nobody but you would ever see this ;-))
> |
> | No, please please please don't do these things.
> |
> | vmalloc() is NOT SOMETHING YOU SHOULD EVER USE! It's only valid for when
> | you_need_  a big array, and you don't have any choice. It's slow, and it's
> | a very restricted resource: it's a global resource that is literally
> | restricted to a few tens of megabytes. It should be_very_  carefully used.
> |
> | There are basically no valid new uses of it. There's a few valid legacy
> | users (I think the file descriptor array), and there are some drivers that
> | use it (which is crap, but drivers are drivers), and it's_really_  valid
> | only for modules. Nothing else.
> |
> | Basically: if you think you need more memory than a kmalloc() can give,
> | you need to re-organize your data structures. To either not need a big
> | area, or to be able to allocate it in chunks.
> |
> | 		Linus
>
> Linus will say exactly the same thing today....

And that is very very sad that is it funny.

--Mark.

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  reply	other threads:[~2013-09-03 22:38 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 13+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2013-09-02 10:52 [PATCH 0/2] xfs: fix some new memory allocation failures Dave Chinner
2013-09-02 10:52 ` [PATCH 1/2] xfs: fix memory allocation failures with ACLs Dave Chinner
2013-09-06 19:59   ` Mark Tinguely
2013-09-02 10:53 ` [PATCH 2/2] xfs: factor all the kmalloc-or-vmalloc fallback allocations Dave Chinner
2013-09-06 20:37   ` Mark Tinguely
2013-09-02 17:03 ` [PATCH 0/2] xfs: fix some new memory allocation failures Mark Tinguely
2013-09-02 22:20   ` Dave Chinner
2013-09-03 13:07     ` Mark Tinguely
2013-09-03 20:04       ` Dave Chinner
2013-09-03 20:46         ` Mark Tinguely
2013-09-03 21:16           ` Dave Chinner
2013-09-03 22:38             ` Mark Tinguely [this message]
2013-09-10 22:40 ` Ben Myers

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