From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S265120AbUELQUf (ORCPT ); Wed, 12 May 2004 12:20:35 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S265122AbUELQUe (ORCPT ); Wed, 12 May 2004 12:20:34 -0400 Received: from e31.co.us.ibm.com ([32.97.110.129]:54668 "EHLO e31.co.us.ibm.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S265119AbUELQUa (ORCPT ); Wed, 12 May 2004 12:20:30 -0400 Subject: RE: [2.6.6 PATCH] Exposing EFI memory map From: Dave Hansen To: Sourav Sen Cc: "'Greg KH'" , Matt_Domsch@dell.com, "'Matthew E Tolentino'" , linux-ia64@vger.kernel.org, "'Linux Kernel Mailing List'" In-Reply-To: <00cb01c4380b$55c97bc0$39624c0f@india.hp.com> References: <00cb01c4380b$55c97bc0$39624c0f@india.hp.com> Content-Type: text/plain Message-Id: <1084378516.14581.56.camel@nighthawk> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Ximian Evolution 1.4.6 Date: Wed, 12 May 2004 09:15:16 -0700 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Wed, 2004-05-12 at 03:24, Sourav Sen wrote: > Maybe. But the point I had in mind is, say for example > memory diagnostics applications/exercisers which reads (Blind > reads, without caring about contents) memory > to uncover errors (single bit errors) can use > this to know the usable ranges and map them thru /dev/mem and > read those ranges. If you expose the EFI memory map, then you'll be able to write memory diagnostics that will work on any EFI-based machine. If you expose the EFI memory map in an architecture-independent fashion, then you'll be able to write diagnostics that will work on any *Linux* machine, plus all of the EFI machines. Plus, by doing it first, you get to greatly influence how the arch-independent stuff is done to make your life the easiest. Think /sys/system/devices/memory, not /sys/firmware/efi. We're planning on doing this anyway for memory hotplug, so some of the work and ideas are already there. I'd be happy to point you to some past discussions and code on the subject. -- Dave