Re: Unified tracing buffer

From: Linus Torvalds
Date: Tue Sep 23 2008 - 15:03:38 EST




On Tue, 23 Sep 2008, Christoph Lameter wrote:

> Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:
> >
> > I think we should instead try to figure out what is currently missing in
> > the kernel vmap mechanism (probably the ability to vmap from large 4MB
> > pages after boot), and fix _that_ instead (if possible), which would not
> > only benefit to tracing, but also to module support.

No. Don't go there. Piece of absolute shit.

The problem with VMAP is that it's _limited_. We don't have reasonable
virtual address space holes for x86-32.

The other is that physically contiguos buffers are hard to come by.
Certainly not an acceptable solution.

The third is that if you have multiple buffers, you need to look them up
in software anyway, so the whole notion of mis-using the TLB to avoid a
software lookup is TOTAL CRAP.

Don't do virtual mapping. IT IS BROKEN. IT IS A TOTAL AND UTTER PIECE OF
SHIT.

I will absolutely not take any general-purpse tracing code if I'm aware of
it mis-using the TLB to play games.

Linus
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