Re: [patch] x86: allow ZONE_DMA to be configurable

From: H. Peter Anvin
Date: Thu Oct 14 2010 - 00:37:52 EST


On 10/13/2010 06:48 PM, David Rientjes wrote:
> On Wed, 13 Oct 2010, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
>
>> And the value of those additional options is what? I'd consider adding
>> this to the sewer pit called CONFIG_EMBEDDED (with a BUG_ON, not a
>> warning... sheesh)
>
> BUG_ON() could panic the machine which would be rather unfortunate if we
> simply tried to load a driver that the kernel no longer supports because
> it doesn't have DMA. A WARN_ON() seems much more appropriate to identify
> what the problem was. It's not a fatal condition.
>
>> but only if there is any demonstrable value other
>> than a trivial amount of code (kilobytes?) in exchange for a bunch of
>> crap #ifdef.
>>
>
> The data savings is about 1% and the text savings is about 0.1% with all
> three options disabled:
>
> 7922297 1245500 989600 10157397 9afd55 vmlinux.before
> 7914674 1232700 989472 10136846 9aad0e vmlinux.after
>
> This is the only #ifdef necessary to make CONFIG_ZONE_DMA=n compile and
> CONFIG_GENERIC_ISA_DMA=n would require two additional #ifdefs
> (CONFIG_ISA_DMA_API=n would require none). We carry this patch
> internally, so it would be trivial to send follow-up patches that do that
> if this patch is merged.

I guess that qualifies (barely, arguably, but let's not go there) as
something that would be able to be carried under CONFIG_EMBEDDED
(certainly not without).

However, I'd like to have the whole thing as a complete patch series.

-hpa

--
H. Peter Anvin, Intel Open Source Technology Center
I work for Intel. I don't speak on their behalf.

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