From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S269657AbUHZWCt (ORCPT ); Thu, 26 Aug 2004 18:02:49 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S269712AbUHZV6s (ORCPT ); Thu, 26 Aug 2004 17:58:48 -0400 Received: from delerium.kernelslacker.org ([81.187.208.145]:32943 "EHLO delerium.codemonkey.org.uk") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S269727AbUHZVml (ORCPT ); Thu, 26 Aug 2004 17:42:41 -0400 Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 22:41:38 +0100 From: Dave Jones To: jmerkey@comcast.net Cc: William Lee Irwin III , 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: <20040826214138.GA11336@redhat.com> Mail-Followup-To: Dave Jones , jmerkey@comcast.net, William Lee Irwin III , 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> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Thu, Aug 26, 2004 at 08:24:38PM +0000, jmerkey@comcast.net wrote: > What do you plan to do when the driver base becomes as > large as the one in WIndows 2000/XP There's a slew of drivers for ancient hardware in Linux that will /never/ be supported in Windows 2000/XP. Given we also support a majority of modern hardware, chances are we're either comparable, or maybe even surpassing Microsoft in terms of number of drivers shipped. > and you don't have enough memory to load all the drivers. Since when do we load /all/ the drivers ? That would be silly. > Right now, iptables barfs even with 3GB of address space when you load up > about a dozen virtual network interfaces ? I'll hazard a guess this has nothing whatsoever do to with address space sizes. > 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. If we did stupid things like trying to load every single driver, maybe. But we don't, so I think you're chasing ghosts. Dave