On Tue, 23 Feb 2010 11:41:17 +0000, Andrew Doran <[email protected]> wrote: > On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 10:25:35AM +0100, Jean-Yves Migeon wrote: > >> Opinions welcomed. > > I would like to see paddr_t and related types always be 64-bit, regardless > of whether the kernel is PAE enabled. If not we effectively create a new > platform.
Yep, i386-pae. IMHO, modules cannot be "safely" shared between PAE and non-PAE. > Do you envision any compatibility problems with userspace > applications from this change? Typical userspace applications, no. However, I suspect that programs like crash(8) or libkvm would be affected by such a change. As well as those reading stuff directly in kmem. There is much more work for in-kernel code though; for example, iterating through the PDs/PTs is not as easy as iterating in a paddr_t array (consider a 64-bits paddr_t with a non-PAE kernel). We would have to split pd_entry_t from paddr_t, which is currently not the case. Maybe there will be overhead by using 64 bits variables for paddr_t too; I don't know. Why would you like to have paddr_t as always being 64 bits :) ? -- Jean-Yves Migeon [email protected]
