Re: large page patch (fwd) (fwd)

Linus Torvalds
2002-08-04T19:38:38Z

On Sun, 4 Aug 2002, Andrew Morton wrote:
>
> Could we establish the eight pte's but still arrange for pages 1-7
> to trap, so the kernel can zero the out at the latest possible time?

You could do that by marking the pages as being there, but PROT_NONE.

On the other hand, cutting down the number of initial pagefaults (by _not_
doing what you suggest) migth be a bigger speedup for process startup than
the slowdown from occasionally doing unnecessary work.

I suspect that there is some non-zero order-X (probably 2 or 3), where you
just win more than you lose. Even for small programs.

Linus