Re: Patch to split kmalloc in sd.c in 2.4.18+

Martin Dalecki
2002-03-23T13:20:33Z

Pete Zaitcev wrote:
> Hello:
>
> One problem I see when trying to use a box with 128 SCSI disks
> is that sd_mod sometimes refuses to load. Earlier kernels simply
> oopsed when it happened, but that is fixed in 2.4.18. The root
> of the evil is the enormous array sd[] that sd_init allocates.
> Alan suggested to split the allocation, which is what I did.
>
> Arjan said that it may be easier to use vmalloc, and sure it is.
> However, I heard that vmalloc space is not too big, so it may
> make sense to conserve it (especially on non-x86 32-bitters).

kmalloc is spare - the vmalloc space is *HUUUUUGE*.
(The v stands for virtual as in virtual memmory...)