ZONE_DMA (was: Re: 2.6.19 -mm merge plans)

Andrew Morton
2006-09-21T00:23:04Z

(Subject rewritten, developer cc'ed, thwap delivered)

On Wed, 20 Sep 2006 17:09:57 -0700
"Martin J. Bligh" <mbligh@mbligh.org> wrote:

>
> > introduce-config_zone_dma.patch
> > optional-zone_dma-in-the-vm.patch
> > optional-zone_dma-in-the-vm-tidy.patch
> > optional-zone_dma-for-i386.patch
> > optional-zone_dma-for-x86_64.patch
> > optional-zone_dma-for-ia64.patch
> > remove-zone_dma-remains-from-parisc.patch
> > remove-zone_dma-remains-from-sh-sh64.patch
>
> Would it not make sense to define what ZONE_DMA actually means
> consistently before trying to change it? The current mess across
> different architectures seems like a disaster area to me.
>
> What DOES requesting ZONE_DMA from a driver actually mean?
>

AFAIK it means "floppy disks" ;)

My concern about these patches is that they'll only be useful for
self-compiled kernels, because distros will be forced to enable ZONE_DMA
for evermore anyway.

If that's correct then perhaps we should drop these patches, because they
will serve to weaken ongoing testing.