2GB address space limit on 32-bit PowerPC Macintosh

2GB address space limit on 32-bit PowerPC Macintosh

[John Reiser]

The 2GB limit on TASK_SIZE for user address space on 32-bit PowerPC
Apple Macintosh is getting in the way of database, filesystem
maintenance, and scientific applications.  In user mode, most
i686 desktops can address 3GB.  While 64-bit systems are becoming
available, the vast majority of existing systems are still 32-bit.
What can be done to get a larger address space for existing Macs?

According to arch/ppc/syslib/prom_init.c, the first problem is
that CONFIG_BOOTX_TEXT restricts CONFIG_TASK_SIZE to only 0x80000000.
Is this an initialization-only restriction that just happens
to persist beyond initialization?  What would it take to remove
this collision from affecting life after boot?  How much of booting
does CONFIG_BOOTX_TEXT affect?

-- 

Re: 2GB address space limit on 32-bit PowerPC Macintosh

[Benjamin Herrenschmidt]

On Sun, 2005-05-15 at 15:36 -0700, John Reiser wrote:
> The 2GB limit on TASK_SIZE for user address space on 32-bit PowerPC
> Apple Macintosh is getting in the way of database, filesystem
> maintenance, and scientific applications.  In user mode, most
> i686 desktops can address 3GB.  While 64-bit systems are becoming
> available, the vast majority of existing systems are still 32-bit.
> What can be done to get a larger address space for existing Macs?
> 
> According to arch/ppc/syslib/prom_init.c, the first problem is
> that CONFIG_BOOTX_TEXT restricts CONFIG_TASK_SIZE to only 0x80000000.
> Is this an initialization-only restriction that just happens
> to persist beyond initialization?  What would it take to remove
> this collision from affecting life after boot?  How much of booting
> does CONFIG_BOOTX_TEXT affect?

The limitation related to CONFIG_BOOTX_TEXT is only a problem on G5,
which isn't supported for 32 bits kernel anymore anyway. "Normal" 32
bits kernel should work fine with TASK_SIZE set to 3Gb. However, there
is another reason why it defaults to 2GB currently, and it is non-32
bits machines.

We "inherited" from some historic junk in the prep and chrp support,
that a lot of embedded platforms blindly copied, where archs use
io_block_mapping() early during boot to hard-wire various IO stuffs in
various places in the address space, including just after 2Gb. It's
totally bogus, but nobody really cared to fix it so far. The 2Gb
TASK_SIZE limit doesn't seem to have ever been an issue for ppc32 users
so far I must say, at least you are the first one to complain ;)

Anyway, nothing prevents you, on a Mac, to force it to 3Gb in
the .config, it will work fine hopefully.  If you are using a G5, just
use a 64 bits kernel.

Ben.

Re: 2GB address space limit on 32-bit PowerPC Macintosh

[Paul Mackerras]

Benjamin Herrenschmidt writes:

> We "inherited" from some historic junk in the prep and chrp support,
> that a lot of embedded platforms blindly copied, where archs use
> io_block_mapping() early during boot to hard-wire various IO stuffs in
> various places in the address space, including just after 2Gb. It's
> totally bogus, but nobody really cared to fix it so far. The 2Gb
> TASK_SIZE limit doesn't seem to have ever been an issue for ppc32 users
> so far I must say, at least you are the first one to complain ;)

I believe that prep and chrp are also now OK with a 3GB TASK_SIZE
limit, it's just various embedded board ports that will blow up with
3GB.  We should change the default to 3GB to encourage the embedded
guys to fix their ports properly (or else to put in the appropriate
Kconfig stuff to force it back to 2GB for their port).

Paul.

Re: 2GB address space limit on 32-bit PowerPC Macintosh

[Benjamin Herrenschmidt]

On Mon, 2005-05-16 at 09:29 +1000, Paul Mackerras wrote:
> Benjamin Herrenschmidt writes:
> 
> > We "inherited" from some historic junk in the prep and chrp support,
> > that a lot of embedded platforms blindly copied, where archs use
> > io_block_mapping() early during boot to hard-wire various IO stuffs in
> > various places in the address space, including just after 2Gb. It's
> > totally bogus, but nobody really cared to fix it so far. The 2Gb
> > TASK_SIZE limit doesn't seem to have ever been an issue for ppc32 users
> > so far I must say, at least you are the first one to complain ;)
> 
> I believe that prep and chrp are also now OK with a 3GB TASK_SIZE
> limit, it's just various embedded board ports that will blow up with
> 3GB.  We should change the default to 3GB to encourage the embedded
> guys to fix their ports properly (or else to put in the appropriate
> Kconfig stuff to force it back to 2GB for their port).
> 

static void __init
prep_map_io(void)
{
	io_block_mapping(0x80000000, PREP_ISA_IO_BASE, 0x10000000, _PAGE_IO);
	io_block_mapping(0xf0000000, PREP_ISA_MEM_BASE, 0x08000000, _PAGE_IO);
}

We need to fix that too :) Though I suppose we can just switch that to
page tables, I don't really see the point of using a BAT here...

Ben.

Re: 2GB address space limit on 32-bit PowerPC Macintosh

[Kumar Gala]

On May 15, 2005, at 6:34 PM, Benjamin Herrenschmidt wrote:

> On Mon, 2005-05-16 at 09:29 +1000, Paul Mackerras wrote:
>  > Benjamin Herrenschmidt writes:
>  >
> > > We "inherited" from some historic junk in the prep and chrp=20
> support,
>  > > that a lot of embedded platforms blindly copied, where archs use
>  > > io_block_mapping() early during boot to hard-wire various IO=20
> stuffs in
>  > > various places in the address space, including just after 2Gb.=20
> It's
>  > > totally bogus, but nobody really cared to fix it so far. The 2Gb
>  > > TASK_SIZE limit doesn't seem to have ever been an issue for ppc32=20=

> users
>  > > so far I must say, at least you are the first one to complain ;)
>  >
> > I believe that prep and chrp are also now OK with a 3GB TASK_SIZE
>  > limit, it's just various embedded board ports that will blow up =
with
>  > 3GB.=A0 We should change the default to 3GB to encourage the =
embedded
>  > guys to fix their ports properly (or else to put in the appropriate
>  > Kconfig stuff to force it back to 2GB for their port).
>  >
>
>  static void __init
>  prep_map_io(void)
> {
>  =A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0 io_block_mapping(0x80000000, PREP_ISA_IO_BASE, =
0x10000000,=20
> _PAGE_IO);
>  =A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0 io_block_mapping(0xf0000000, PREP_ISA_MEM_BASE, =
0x08000000,=20
> _PAGE_IO);
>  }
>
> We need to fix that too :) Though I suppose we can just switch that to
>  page tables, I don't really see the point of using a BAT here...

Are the embedded board ports broken because of similar=20
io_block_mapping() calls or for some other reason?

I'm in agreement that we should bump TASK_SIZE to 3GB and fix things,=20
how about after 2.6.12 is out?

- kumar=

Re: 2GB address space limit on 32-bit PowerPC Macintosh

[Benjamin Herrenschmidt]

> >
> > We need to fix that too :) Though I suppose we can just switch that to
> >  page tables, I don't really see the point of using a BAT here...
> 
> Are the embedded board ports broken because of similar 
> io_block_mapping() calls or for some other reason?
 
Mostly because of the above, though some embedded ports may do even more
horrible things for what i know :) The problem with io_block_mapping()
is that 1) it lets you put those BARs or mappings where you want, and 2)
you end up with plenty of code hard-coding this virtual address here or
there that need to be fixed.

> I'm in agreement that we should bump TASK_SIZE to 3GB and fix things, 
> how about after 2.6.12 is out?

Agreed. I'll fix PReP/CHRP/pmac & defconfig. Every embedded board
vendor/maintainer will be responsible for fixing his/her boards support.

Ben.

Re: 2GB address space limit on 32-bit PowerPC Macintosh

[Kumar Gala]

On May 16, 2005, at 12:52 AM, Benjamin Herrenschmidt wrote:

>
>
> > >
>  > > We need to fix that too :) Though I suppose we can just switch=20
> that to
>  > >=A0 page tables, I don't really see the point of using a BAT =
here...
>  >
> > Are the embedded board ports broken because of similar
> > io_block_mapping() calls or for some other reason?
>  =A0
>  Mostly because of the above, though some embedded ports may do even=20=

> more
>  horrible things for what i know :) The problem with =
io_block_mapping()
> is that 1) it lets you put those BARs or mappings where you want, and=20=

> 2)
>  you end up with plenty of code hard-coding this virtual address here=20=

> or
>  there that need to be fixed.

I'm interested to see if Paul is aware of any other embedded port=20
issues, since he mentioned the problem there.

Agreed, the other problem that comes up from time to time due to=20
io_block_mapping() that I've see is problem with modules not working=20
because the kernel doesn't think it has any vmalloc() space left.

> > I'm in agreement that we should bump TASK_SIZE to 3GB and fix =
things,
> > how about after 2.6.12 is out?
>
> Agreed. I'll fix PReP/CHRP/pmac & defconfig. Every embedded board
>  vendor/maintainer will be responsible for fixing his/her boards=20
> support.

Agreed.  We should probably send an email to linuxppc-embedded with a=20
more proper subject line to let people know.

- kumar

Re: 2GB address space limit on 32-bit PowerPC Macintosh

[Benjamin Herrenschmidt]

> I'm interested to see if Paul is aware of any other embedded port 
> issues, since he mentioned the problem there.

Well, we need to dig out from the part of our memory containing things
we don't want to have to deal with anymore things details about the
booke, 4xx, 8xx, ... memory management :)
 
> Agreed, the other problem that comes up from time to time due to 
> io_block_mapping() that I've see is problem with modules not working 
> because the kernel doesn't think it has any vmalloc() space left.

How so ? Because we ioremap too much ? Well, that's an ooooold problem.
ppc32 PCI code for example goes at length trying to minimize the amount
of IO space mapped by PCI bridges (since IO space, unlike memory space,
on our current PCI implementation is permanently mapped in). With a
standard setup, we can only ioremap/vmalloc what is left between top of
memory and 1Gb ... Unless you force your lowmem limit to something lower
than the current limit which I think is 768Mb.

> > > I'm in agreement that we should bump TASK_SIZE to 3GB and fix things,
> > > how about after 2.6.12 is out?
> >
> > Agreed. I'll fix PReP/CHRP/pmac & defconfig. Every embedded board
> >  vendor/maintainer will be responsible for fixing his/her boards 
> > support.
> 
> Agreed.  We should probably send an email to linuxppc-embedded with a 
> more proper subject line to let people know.
> 
> - kumar
> 

Re: 2GB address space limit on 32-bit PowerPC Macintosh

[Dan Malek]

On May 16, 2005, at 2:21 AM, Kumar Gala wrote:

>
> On May 16, 2005, at 12:52 AM, Benjamin Herrenschmidt wrote:
>> Agreed. I'll fix PReP/CHRP/pmac & defconfig. Every embedded board
>>  vendor/maintainer will be responsible for fixing his/her boards 
>> support.
>
> Agreed.  We should probably send an email to linuxppc-embedded with a 
> more proper subject line to let people know.

There isn't any reason to break everything and force updates.  If 
someone wants
a 3G task size, then just configure that with the advanced options.   
All of that
grew out of the embedded board support, so just make PMac support it 
too.
In particular, I don't want to force the 8xx to a 3G task space, 
because it adds
more instructions to the TLB handlers, on a system that has never 
required
such application space.  We are 12 releases in 2.6, and it still seems 
like
a development kernel :-)  I think if someone wants this feature on a 
board
port that doesn't support it, then just fix that one board port instead 
of breaking
everything.

Thanks.

	-- Dan

Re: 2GB address space limit on 32-bit PowerPC Macintosh

[Benjamin Herrenschmidt]

On Mon, 2005-05-16 at 11:04 -0400, Dan Malek wrote:
> On May 16, 2005, at 2:21 AM, Kumar Gala wrote:
> 
> >
> > On May 16, 2005, at 12:52 AM, Benjamin Herrenschmidt wrote:
> >> Agreed. I'll fix PReP/CHRP/pmac & defconfig. Every embedded board
> >>  vendor/maintainer will be responsible for fixing his/her boards 
> >> support.
> >
> > Agreed.  We should probably send an email to linuxppc-embedded with a 
> > more proper subject line to let people know.
> 
> There isn't any reason to break everything and force updates.  If 
> someone wants
> a 3G task size, then just configure that with the advanced options.   
> All of that
> grew out of the embedded board support, so just make PMac support it 
> too.
> In particular, I don't want to force the 8xx to a 3G task space, 
> because it adds
> more instructions to the TLB handlers, on a system that has never 
> required
> such application space.  We are 12 releases in 2.6, and it still seems 
> like
> a development kernel :-)  I think if someone wants this feature on a 
> board
> port that doesn't support it, then just fix that one board port instead 
> of breaking
> everything.

I suppose it would add about ... 1 instruction :) Which is probably
barely measurable compared to the cost of the cache misses of getting to
the page table entires...

But I agree that we don't abolutely _need_ to break everybody. Maybe a
better compromise would be to have the default beeing per CPU family ?
6xx/7xx/7xxx could default to 3G and 8xx stay at 2G...

Ben.

Re: 2GB address space limit on 32-bit PowerPC Macintosh

[Dan Malek]

On May 16, 2005, at 11:05 AM, Benjamin Herrenschmidt wrote:

> I suppose it would add about ... 1 instruction :)

It's a little more than that :-)

> But I agree that we don't abolutely _need_ to break everybody. Maybe a
> better compromise would be to have the default beeing per CPU family ?
> 6xx/7xx/7xxx could default to 3G and 8xx stay at 2G...

That's still going to break nearly every embedded board.  My point is
that is all configurable for each individual board, so if you want that 
to
be the default for a board, then just update the defconfig for that 
board.
The PMac is only one "board" out of many we support, and I don't think
it should be considered the default or generic configuration any more
than any other board.  The PMac is the easiest to update because it's
a single configuration file.  If you want that to have a 3G default task
space, then update that one configuration file.  As we have time we
will update all of the others, and when we get to the point where most
boards are of that configuration, we'll make it the default and the
minority of boards become the special cases.

Thanks.


	-- Dan

Re: 2GB address space limit on 32-bit PowerPC Macintosh

[Wolfgang Denk]

In message <1116255938.5095.133.camel@gaston> you wrote:
>
> I suppose it would add about ... 1 instruction :) Which is probably
> barely measurable compared to the cost of the cache misses of getting to
> the page table entires...

That would be just another "just 1 instruction"  modifircation  to  a
time  critical path in a kernel which already now is so slow compared
against an old 2.4 kernel that I'm really surprised to  nobody  seems
to care.

> But I agree that we don't abolutely _need_ to break everybody. Maybe a
> better compromise would be to have the default beeing per CPU family ?
> 6xx/7xx/7xxx could default to 3G and 8xx stay at 2G...

How many systems actually need this? Why make the <1% of the  systems
that need it the default?

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
Software Engineering:  Embedded and Realtime Systems,  Embedded Linux
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: wd@denx.de
Q: Why do PCs have a reset button on the front?
A: Because they are expected to run Microsoft operating systems.

Re: 2GB address space limit on 32-bit PowerPC Macintosh

[Eugene Surovegin]

On Mon, May 16, 2005 at 06:11:03PM +0200, Wolfgang Denk wrote:
> In message <1116255938.5095.133.camel@gaston> you wrote:
> >
> > I suppose it would add about ... 1 instruction :) Which is probably
> > barely measurable compared to the cost of the cache misses of getting to
> > the page table entires...
> 
> That would be just another "just 1 instruction"  modifircation  to  a
> time  critical path in a kernel which already now is so slow compared
> against an old 2.4 kernel that I'm really surprised to  nobody  seems
> to care.

Well, this just one instruction is needed to make code correct anyway, 
because currently head_8xx.S, head_4xx.S, head_44x.s just hardcode 
0x80000000 TASK_SIZE assumption, and you cannot change TASK_SIZE on 
all this hardware.

-- 
Eugene

Re: 2GB address space limit on 32-bit PowerPC Macintosh

[Benjamin Herrenschmidt]

> The PMac is only one "board" out of many we support, and I don't think
> it should be considered the default or generic configuration any more
> than any other board.  The PMac is the easiest to update because it's
> a single configuration file. 

Single ? Hrm... not so sure :) It's also the biggest (in terms of line
of code) subarch of the ppc32 architecture :) Besides, pmac is also chrp
& prep as I'm really talking about CONFIG_PPC_MULTIPLATFORM (too bad no
embedded vendor ever tried to be part of the common kernel... heh)

>  If you want that to have a 3G default task
> space, then update that one configuration file.  

Hrm... you mean the defconfig then ? Ok, right, well, I suppose we could
update pmac, prep and chrp defconfigs. It's still not the default as per
Kconfig which I find a little bit annoying. 

> As we have time we
> will update all of the others, and when we get to the point where most
> boards are of that configuration, we'll make it the default and the
> minority of boards become the special cases.

On the other hands, how many embedded boards care about getting the
latest "linus" tree ? I mean, I do have to update pmac support regulary
as new developpement occurs, and you know as well as I do that 2.6.x
series are by no mean stable. Embedded code has been rather frozen in
the rock, I don't think it's much to ask from the appropriate maintainer
to have a quick look at possibly upgrading their board support as well.
And it isn't a difficult change for most 6xx/7xx/7xxx based boards
anyway. What I'm worried about is that without some "pressure" (like
breaking them), it will simply never be fixed...

The whole io_block_mapping() was a bad idea in the first place. We
introduced that API to replace an even worse one which was to set BATs
directly in the early days of the kernel, but I for one think we should
just have killed the whole thing in the first place.

Ben.

Re: 2GB address space limit on 32-bit PowerPC Macintosh

[Dan Malek]

On May 16, 2005, at 12:42 PM, Benjamin Herrenschmidt wrote:

> On the other hands, how many embedded boards care about getting the
> latest "linus" tree ?

Why are you PMac guys always treating the embedded boards
as second class citizens?  Don't any of you remember that all of
initial PowerPC work was done on an embedded board and the PMac
was a beneficiary of that work? :-)

Of course we care the "linus" tree is up to date.  We use that
all of the time for new product development.  If it wasn't for so few
of us having permission to write updates, we would probably register
many more than you do.

> ...  Embedded code has been rather frozen in
> the rock, I don't think it's much to ask from the appropriate 
> maintainer
> to have a quick look at possibly upgrading their board support as well.

It's not frozen, it's just more tedious because we are trying to find
solutions that are commonly good for everyone, not demanding
changes and forcing everyone else to adapt.

> And it isn't a difficult change for most 6xx/7xx/7xxx based boards
> anyway. What I'm worried about is that without some "pressure" (like
> breaking them), it will simply never be fixed...

Who cares?  We have the ability to support the memory map flexibility
for everyone.  If you need it, use it, and fix it if necessary.  There 
are
too many other things that need attention.  Again, you are taking one
of the features we added for embedded boards a long time ago, and
demanding everyone support it.  That's not necessary.   If you want
to use this feature on a PMac, then use it, but please don't demand
everyone else do so.  We didn't do that when the feature was added.

> The whole io_block_mapping() was a bad idea in the first place.

All of the ideas in 2.6 are going to look like bad ideas in the future 
:-)
It's what worked and was necessary given the lack of any other
APIs at the time.  We are working on removing these in the embedded
boards, and it has to be done on the PMac as well if you want to
take advantage of something other than a 2G task space.

As time permits, I will make whatever changes to the board ports
I'm aware of so they will accommodate a 3G task space, or fix up
the configuration files so the default is 2G.  At some point, we can
make it the configuration default.

Thanks.


	-- Dan

Re: 2GB address space limit on 32-bit PowerPC Macintosh

[Mark A. Greer]

Benjamin Herrenschmidt wrote:

>
>series are by no mean stable. Embedded code has been rather frozen in
>the rock, I don't think it's much to ask from the appropriate maintainer
>to have a quick look at possibly upgrading their board support as well.
>

Seems reasonable to me.

>And it isn't a difficult change for most 6xx/7xx/7xxx based boards
>anyway.
>

 From a quick grep, it looks like apus, gemini, k2, lopec, pplus, prep, 
and prpmc800 are the offenders in the 6xx/7xx/74xx world.  Does anyone 
even care about the lopec and k2 anymore?

> What I'm worried about is that without some "pressure" (like
>breaking them), it will simply never be fixed...
>

Probably true...

Mark

Re: 2GB address space limit on 32-bit PowerPC Macintosh

[Mark A. Greer]

Mark A. Greer wrote:

> Benjamin Herrenschmidt wrote:
>
>>
>> series are by no mean stable. Embedded code has been rather frozen in
>> the rock, I don't think it's much to ask from the appropriate maintainer
>> to have a quick look at possibly upgrading their board support as well.
>>
>
> Seems reasonable to me. 


Oops...
/me unintentionally stepped into the middle of a flame war  :)

>
>
>> And it isn't a difficult change for most 6xx/7xx/7xxx based boards
>> anyway.
>>
>
> From a quick grep, it looks like apus, gemini, k2, lopec, pplus, prep, 
> and prpmc800 are the offenders in the 6xx/7xx/74xx world.  Does anyone 
> even care about the lopec and k2 anymore? 


To be clear, "offender" == board that has an io_block_mapping below the 
3 GB line.  There are still io_block_mapping calls necessary to map regs 
that are used to determine memory size & whatnot but many are above the 
3 GB line and even >= 0xf0000000.

Mark

Re: 2GB address space limit on 32-bit PowerPC Macintosh

[Dan Malek]

On May 16, 2005, at 2:06 PM, Mark A. Greer wrote:

> Oops...
> /me unintentionally stepped into the middle of a flame war  :)

Just pee on it :-)

> To be clear, "offender" == board that has an io_block_mapping below 
> the 3 GB line.

That is one of the obvious changes. You are likely to find some other 
assumptions
that may need attention.  The problem with io_block_mapping is you just 
can't
remove it, you have to fix up all of the code that is based on the 
assumption these
spaces are mapped.  You are likely to find yourself in a situation 
where you need
access to some board control registers before VM is set up and you can 
call
ioremap().  So, you will find yourself doing some hack in head.S to map 
BAT
registers to get access to this, which is exactly what 
io_block_mapping() does,
only in a way that is obvious :-)

Thanks.


	-- Dan

Re: 2GB address space limit on 32-bit PowerPC Macintosh

[Mark A. Greer]

Dan Malek wrote:

>
> On May 16, 2005, at 2:06 PM, Mark A. Greer wrote:
>
>> Oops...
>> /me unintentionally stepped into the middle of a flame war  :)
>
>
> Just pee on it :-)


Heh!

>
>
>> To be clear, "offender" == board that has an io_block_mapping below 
>> the 3 GB line.
>
>
> That is one of the obvious changes. You are likely to find some other 
> assumptions
> that may need attention.  The problem with io_block_mapping is you 
> just can't
> remove it, you have to fix up all of the code that is based on the 
> assumption these
> spaces are mapped.  You are likely to find yourself in a situation 
> where you need
> access to some board control registers before VM is set up and you can 
> call
> ioremap().  So, you will find yourself doing some hack in head.S to 
> map BAT
> registers to get access to this, which is exactly what 
> io_block_mapping() does,
> only in a way that is obvious :-)


I think I understand all of that.  I wasn't clear in my email.  I was 
talking about "fixing" such that 3GB works (i.e., io_block_mapping are 
above 3GB virt, if possible) not "fixing" such that we can get rid of 
io_block_mapping altogether.  We still need io_block_mapping for exactly 
the reasons you state.

I need to learn how to write better emails...  :(

Mark

Re: 2GB address space limit on 32-bit PowerPC Macintosh

[Dan Malek]

On May 16, 2005, at 4:43 PM, Mark A. Greer wrote:

> I think I understand all of that.  I wasn't clear in my email.  I was 
> talking about "fixing" such that 3GB works (i.e., io_block_mapping are 
> above 3GB virt, if possible) not "fixing" such that we can get rid of 
> io_block_mapping altogether.  We still need io_block_mapping for 
> exactly the reasons you state.

I think I've seen hacks from you that temporarily set up BATs for 
serial console
access until the BAT is forcefully re-used later :-)  I just wanted to 
document the
issue for everyone, that breaking this is more than just a five minute 
fix and
test exercise (which may only further obfuscate a hack than actually 
change
anything) :-)

Thanks.

	-- Dan

Re: 2GB address space limit on 32-bit PowerPC Macintosh

[Benjamin Herrenschmidt]

> Who cares?  We have the ability to support the memory map flexibility
> for everyone.  If you need it, use it, and fix it if necessary.  There 
> are
> too many other things that need attention.  Again, you are taking one
> of the features we added for embedded boards a long time ago, and
> demanding everyone support it.

Gack ? None of this was 'added for embedded boards'. The initial 2G/2G
split was Cort's decision afaik for the PReP port, and it was PReP and
pmac that introduced the use of BATs for IO mappings, which then got
turned into io_block_mapping() for clarity. Those platorms predate by
far any embedded involvement in the ppc kernel.

>   That's not necessary.   If you want
> to use this feature on a PMac, then use it, but please don't demand
> everyone else do so.  We didn't do that when the feature was added.

It's more than a "feature", it's the way it should have been done in the
first place on 6xx/7xx/7xxx CPUs and wasn't done because of a cheap hack
for IO mapping. I have no problem with other CPU family maintainers
deciding to restrict TASK_SIZE for the sake of saving a couple of
instructions (on 4xx, it's really replacing andis.;beq with
rlwinm;cmpl;bne or something like that, so one instruction, to support
any TASK_SIZE).

> > The whole io_block_mapping() was a bad idea in the first place.
> 
> All of the ideas in 2.6 are going to look like bad ideas in the future 
> :-)

Hrm... If you say so ...

> It's what worked and was necessary given the lack of any other
> APIs at the time. 

ioremap and variants was available at this time and has always been.

>  We are working on removing these in the embedded
> boards, and it has to be done on the PMac as well if you want to
> take advantage of something other than a 2G task space.

Well, you know what ? I've removed them from pmac a long time ago :) And
you know what also ? what you just stated above is _exactly_ what this
thread is all about ... so what are you complaining about ? :)

> As time permits, I will make whatever changes to the board ports
> I'm aware of so they will accommodate a 3G task space, or fix up
> the configuration files so the default is 2G.  At some point, we can
> make it the configuration default.

Good, I'm not asking for anything else here.

Ben.

Re: 2GB address space limit on 32-bit PowerPC Macintosh

[Benjamin Herrenschmidt]

On Mon, 2005-05-16 at 11:00 -0700, Mark A. Greer wrote:
> Benjamin Herrenschmidt wrote:
> 
> >
> >series are by no mean stable. Embedded code has been rather frozen in
> >the rock, I don't think it's much to ask from the appropriate maintainer
> >to have a quick look at possibly upgrading their board support as well.
> >
> 
> Seems reasonable to me.
> 
> >And it isn't a difficult change for most 6xx/7xx/7xxx based boards
> >anyway.
> >
> 
>  From a quick grep, it looks like apus, gemini, k2, lopec, pplus, prep, 
> and prpmc800 are the offenders in the 6xx/7xx/74xx world.  Does anyone 
> even care about the lopec and k2 anymore?

Note that there is only a problem if those io_block_mapping calls are
done to map things in the virtual region between 2G and 3G. If they are
done to map things "high" (like 0xf*) they are still fine.

Ben.

Re: 2GB address space limit on 32-bit PowerPC Macintosh

[Benjamin Herrenschmidt]

On Mon, 2005-05-16 at 16:31 -0400, Dan Malek wrote:
> On May 16, 2005, at 2:06 PM, Mark A. Greer wrote:
> 
> > Oops...
> > /me unintentionally stepped into the middle of a flame war  :)
> 
> Just pee on it :-)
> 
> > To be clear, "offender" == board that has an io_block_mapping below 
> > the 3 GB line.
> 
> That is one of the obvious changes. You are likely to find some other 
> assumptions
> that may need attention.  The problem with io_block_mapping is you just 
> can't
> remove it, you have to fix up all of the code that is based on the 
> assumption these
> spaces are mapped.  You are likely to find yourself in a situation 
> where you need
> access to some board control registers before VM is set up and you can 
> call
> ioremap().  So, you will find yourself doing some hack in head.S to map 
> BAT
> registers to get access to this, which is exactly what 
> io_block_mapping() does,
> only in a way that is obvious :-)

Well, I agree that way we currently do it has this issue, but I think
this is because we did it wrong in the first place. We really shouldn't
need to do anything before ioremap can be used. And if we need an early
ioremap, we could implement bolted hash entries like we do on ppc64 :)
However, don't get wrong here, I'm not 100% opposed to the use of BATs
for early mappings, I just think that the whole hard-coding of the
virtual address is a bad idea, and that we shouldn't have allowed them
to be below KERNELBASE. The BAT could still have been "dynamically"
positioned using the ioremap_bot mecanism with appropriate alignment, or
at worse, we could have kept the current mecanism, but just not let it
work below KERNELBASE.

Ben.