public inbox for linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: Andi Kleen <andi@firstfloor.org>
To: akpm@osdl.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, rherilier@yahoo.fr,
	dtor@mail.ru
Subject: wistron_btns-add-support-for-x86_64-systems.patch in -mm
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 15:47:56 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20071223144756.GA4827@basil.nowhere.org> (raw)


While looking for something else I stumbled over

wistron_btns-add-support-for-x86_64-systems.patch

in -mm. The patch looks very dubious to me. It basically
calls a BIOS function in long mode. To work like implemented
the BIOS would need to know magically what it was called
from (32bit or 64bit) and then execute different code paths.

It's very unlikely that this works. Most likely 
it will crash and if it happens to currently work 
it will be extremly fragile and crash at some future
point.

If anything you would need to set up a compat mode segment
and call the BIOS from that, but there are other problems
like interrupts not working etc (compat mode is somewhat
limited). Early in the x86-64 port there was a decision
to not call any BIOS calls from long mode because of these
problems. 

The only sane way to call that code would be to do so
from user space using some kind of emulator (e.g. like
the x server does) 

So I think the patch should be dropped.

-Andi


             reply	other threads:[~2007-12-23 14:48 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 3+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2007-12-23 14:47 Andi Kleen [this message]
2008-01-05 17:52 ` wistron_btns-add-support-for-x86_64-systems.patch in -mm Rémi Hérilier
2008-01-06  0:28   ` Carlos Corbacho

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=20071223144756.GA4827@basil.nowhere.org \
    --to=andi@firstfloor.org \
    --cc=akpm@osdl.org \
    --cc=dtor@mail.ru \
    --cc=linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org \
    --cc=rherilier@yahoo.fr \
    /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