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From: linux@horizon.com
To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, wli@holomorphy.com
Cc: linux@horizon.com
Subject: Re: divorce CONFIG_X86_PAE from CONFIG_HIGHMEM64G
Date: 12 Jun 2007 04:37:58 -0400	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20070612083758.23401.qmail@science.horizon.com> (raw)

Given that incomprehensible help texts are a bit of a pet peeve of mine
(I just last weekend figured out that you don't need to select an I2C
algorithm driver to have working I2c - I had thought it was a "one from
column A, one from column B" thing), let me take a crack...

	PAE doubles the size of each page table entry, increasing
	kernel memory consumption and slowing page table access.
	However, it enables:
	- Addressing more than 4G of physical RAM (CONFIG_HIGHMEM is
	  also required)
	- Marking pages as readable but not executable using the NX
	  (no-execute) bit, which protects applications from stack
	  overflow attacks.
	- Swap files or partitions larger than 64G each.
	  (Only needed with >4G RAM or very heavy tmpfs use.)

	A kernel compiled with this option cannot boot on a processor
	without PAE support.  Enabling this also disables the
	(expert use only) CONFIG_VMSPLIT_[23]G_OPT options.

Does that seem reasonably user-oriented?

             reply	other threads:[~2007-06-12  8:38 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 14+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2007-06-12  8:37 linux [this message]
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2007-06-13  7:26 divorce CONFIG_X86_PAE from CONFIG_HIGHMEM64G Bodo Eggert
2007-06-08  8:07 Mikael Pettersson
2007-06-08 14:47 ` William Lee Irwin III
2007-06-08  2:35 William Lee Irwin III
2007-06-08  2:41 ` Andrew Morton
2007-06-08  3:06   ` William Lee Irwin III
2007-06-08  3:38     ` H. Peter Anvin
2007-06-08  3:41       ` William Lee Irwin III
2007-06-08  3:44         ` H. Peter Anvin
2007-06-08  3:51           ` William Lee Irwin III
2007-06-11 23:52 ` Adrian Bunk
2007-06-12  0:00   ` William Lee Irwin III
2007-06-12  1:12     ` Adrian Bunk

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