public inbox for linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: Ralf Baechle <ralf@linux-mips.org>
To: gniuxiao <gniuxiao.mailinglist@gmail.com>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Why is there limited number of permanent memory mappings in kernel on x86?
Date: Thu, 9 Nov 2006 13:59:55 +0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20061109135955.GA18583@linux-mips.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <3dd9a95e0611090134l74c181eemc1662e533b8e62d2@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Nov 09, 2006 at 05:34:30PM +0800, gniuxiao wrote:

> So we have to use kmap() to map high memory to kernel address???

Several reasons:

 o on i386 kernel address space is limited to just 1GB of which most that
   is on the order of 970MB is used for mapping lowmem.  The remainder is
   used for ioremap'ed memory, vmalloc'ed memory, highmem mappings and
   fixmap mappings, so there really on is very little address space.
 o highmem mappings are assumed to be very shortlived so at any time there
   will only be a small number of mappings active.
 o The algorithm to allocate a virtual address for a non-atomic kmap is
   somewhat simpleminded with O(n) worst case where n is the max. number
   of mappable pages and will be the slower the more pages are actually
   mapped.

  Ralf

      reply	other threads:[~2006-11-09 13:59 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 2+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2006-11-09  9:34 Why is there limited number of permanent memory mappings in kernel on x86? gniuxiao
2006-11-09 13:59 ` Ralf Baechle [this message]

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=20061109135955.GA18583@linux-mips.org \
    --to=ralf@linux-mips.org \
    --cc=gniuxiao.mailinglist@gmail.com \
    --cc=linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox