Re: [PATCH] x86_32: trim memory by updating e820 v3

From: Ingo Molnar
Date: Tue Apr 29 2008 - 06:32:25 EST



* Eric W. Biederman <ebiederm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> So lets concentrate on PAT to solve contiguous MTRR region problems.
>
> We can upgrade UC to WC with pat. As well as demote WB to UC or WC.
> So for those regions we know about we should be in good shape.

sure, but whatever we do now in the sysfs API space, it will hit distros
only in a year, relistically, because Xorg also has to adopt to it. The
workaround from Yinghai looks reasonably configurable - if we mess up
(say an SMM comes in while we fiddle with the MTRRs) we'll likely get a
lockup right then, during bootup, so it wont be hard to realize what
went wrong. In that sense it's in fact safer to do it during early init
than let the user do it via some script, because the window is smaller,
etc.

we still default to the safe mode of course and dont touch MTRRs, but
for note the various configuration options that are available to distros
and users.

Ingo
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