Re: [PATCH] /proc/sys/kernel/pointer_size

David S. Miller
2003-01-08T22:37:53Z

From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@transmeta.com>
Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 13:03:14 -0800 (PST)

On Wed, 8 Jan 2003, John Levon wrote:
> What other ways ? Dave M reasonably argued it wasn't part of the
> architecture's ABI, so did not have a place in the headers.

You should certainly see it in "uname -a" output, for example.

Doesn't tell you the kernel pointer size. We fake the uname
output when a process runs as PERS_LINUX_32BIT which is what
we use to trick 'configure' and other build programs in order to
build 32-bit apps properly.

Compile oprofile for the proper architecture if you do it yourself, and
complain to the vendor if the vendor is stupid enough to supply a 32-bit
oprofile with a 64-bit kernel.

There is _no_ excuse to bloat the kernel for user mistakes.

There simply is no fully usable 64-bit userland on some of these
platforms.