Re: [PATCH 1/2] mm: implement remap_pfn_range with apply_to_page_range

From: Peter Chubb
Date: Sun Nov 16 2008 - 22:03:41 EST


>>>>> "Nick" == Nick Piggin <nickpiggin@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:


Nick> It's not meant to be pluggable. Actually this came up last I
Nick> think when the UNSW wanted to add page table accessors to
Nick> abstract this. They came up with a good set of things, but in
Nick> the end you can't justify slowing things down in these paths
Nick> unless you actually have a replacement page table structure that
Nick> gets you a *net win*. So far, I haven't heard from them again.

We tried hard. The slowdown wasn't all that much on system
benchmarks, but you could see it on the microbenchmarks. And it made
stuff a LOT cleaner.

We wanted it to put super-page friendly pagetables in for
architectures not wedded to the 3/4 level x86 pagetable hardware
format.

The people I had working on this left (finished a masters,
finished a PhD, contract ran out and no more money), and I haven't had
the manpower to maintain the patchset, especially after the negative
responses we got from linux-MM.

--
Dr Peter Chubb http://www.gelato.unsw.edu.au peterc AT gelato.unsw.edu.au
http://www.ertos.nicta.com.au ERTOS within National ICT Australia

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