From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S269637AbUHZU7M (ORCPT ); Thu, 26 Aug 2004 16:59:12 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S269664AbUHZU5Y (ORCPT ); Thu, 26 Aug 2004 16:57:24 -0400 Received: from holomorphy.com ([207.189.100.168]:41880 "EHLO holomorphy.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S269590AbUHZUiL (ORCPT ); Thu, 26 Aug 2004 16:38:11 -0400 Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 13:38:06 -0700 From: William Lee Irwin III To: jmerkey@comcast.net Cc: Roland Dreier , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, jmerkey@drdos.com Subject: Re: 1GB/2GB/3GB User Space Splitting Patch 2.6.8.1 (PSEUDO SPAM) Message-ID: <20040826203806.GH2793@holomorphy.com> Mail-Followup-To: William Lee Irwin III , jmerkey@comcast.net, Roland Dreier , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, jmerkey@drdos.com References: <082620042024.23755.412E47050006895C00005CCB2200751150970A059D0A0306@comcast.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <082620042024.23755.412E47050006895C00005CCB2200751150970A059D0A0306@comcast.net> Organization: The Domain of Holomorphy User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.6+20040722i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org At some point in the past, my attribution was stripped from: >> Though asinine, the ABI spec is set in stone. On Thu, Aug 26, 2004 at 08:24:38PM +0000, jmerkey@comcast.net wrote: > Why should Linux, which supports multiple executable formats, tie > itself to ELF exclusively? I doubt I am going to need to run ORACLE > or some other piggish app on my embedded linux system, but I would > like to have more kernel address space for drivers and other > appliance type features. What do you plan to do when the driver base > becomes as large as the one in WIndows 2000/XP and you don't have > enough memory to load all the drivers. Right now, iptables barfs > even with 3GB of address space when you load up about a dozen > virtual network interfaces ? Microsoft had this same problem (only > at a much sooner juncture in their platform evolution) and went to > VM support in the kernel itself to increase virtual address space for > kernel apps, file systems, and drivers when thye hit the wall. It's > coming time to start thinking about it. You're years late to this game. It's been thought about and the consensus (which I disagreed with) was to reject virtualspace pressure related changes of this kind for 32-bit platforms in favor of refusing to support 32-bit platforms and/or workloads requiring them. Also, please line wrap at 80 characters (preferably 70) and please don't top post. The request about "top posting" is that placing quoted text prior to your responses in the message, with a line attributing the quoted text to the original author immediately above the quoted text is greatly preferred over the quoting arrangements made in your post(s). -- wli