Re: [PATCH] 2.5.21 Nonlinear CPU support

From: Rusty Russell (rusty@rustcorp.com.au)
Date: Tue Jun 11 2002 - 19:53:20 EST


In message <3D05C27D.186DC066@zip.com.au> you write:
> Rusty Russell wrote:
> >
> > ...
> > Let's not perpetuate the myth that everything in the kernel needs to
> > be tuned to the last cycle at all costs, hm?
>
> I was more concerned about the RAM use, actually.
>
> This patch is an additional reason for CONFIG_NR_CPUS, but I've rather
> gone cold on that idea because the "proper fix" is to make all those
> huge per-cpu arrays dynamically allocated. So you can run a 64p kernel
> on 2p without losing hundreds of k of memory and kernel address space.
>
> But it looks like all those dynamically-allocated structures would
> have to be allocated out to NR_CPUS anyway, to support hotplug, yes?
>
> In which case, CONFIG_NR_CPUS is the only way to get the memory
> back...

Precisely. Previously, the assumption was that if you're SMP, memory
is cheap. To be frank, it's still true, but I don't want to
discourage any sign of a "small is beautiful" mindset 8)

Rusty.

--
  Anyone who quotes me in their sig is an idiot. -- Rusty Russell.
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Jun 15 2002 - 22:00:23 EST