RE: Can Linux live without DMA zone?

From: Peter Zijlstra
Date: Thu Nov 02 2006 - 02:12:42 EST


On Thu, 2006-11-02 at 11:43 +0800, Conke Hu wrote:
> It seems a good idea.
> Is dma zone is still necessay on most modern computers?

(don't top post!)

if you would have used google, you'd have found this:
http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-arch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/msg01623.html


cheers

> -----Original Message-----
> From: linux-kernel-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:linux-kernel-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jun Sun
> Sent: 2006å11æ2æ 10:16
> To: linux-kernel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Can Linux live without DMA zone?
>
>
> I am trying to reserve a block of memory (>16MB) starting from 0 and hide it
> from kernel. A consequence is that DMA zone now has size 0. That causes
> many drivers to grief (OOMs).
>
> I see two ways out:
>
> 1. Modify individual drivers and convince them not to alloc with GFP_DMA.
> I have been trying to do this but do not seem to see an end of it. :)
>
> 2. Simply lie and increase MAX_DMA_ADDRESS to really big (like 1GB) so that
> the whole memory region belongs to DMA zone.
>
> #2 sounds pretty hackish. I am sure something bad will happen
> sooner or later (like what?). But so far it appears to be working fine.
>
> The fundamental question is: Has anybody tried to run Linux without 0 sized
> DMA zone before? Am I doing something that nobody has done before (which is
> something really hard to believe these days with Linux :P)?
>
> Cheers.
>
> Jun
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