Re: Subject: [PATCH 1/2] x86: get back 15 vectors

From: H. Peter Anvin
Date: Mon Jan 04 2010 - 14:49:35 EST


[Adding Suresh to the Cc: list]

On 01/04/2010 11:35 AM, Yinghai Lu wrote:
>
> so we can use [0x10, 0x1f]
>
> sth like this?
>

No!!!

[0x10, 0x1f] is reserved for exceptions. We can probably get away with
stealing *one* vector... presumably at the end (0x1f). However, we can
absolutely not use the whole block: 0x10-0x13 is occupied by exceptions
we already have OS support for (#MF, #AC, #MC, and #XM), and it's pretty
much guaranteed we'll have more coming. However, growth is quite slow
and since this is a kernel-internal vector (not accessible to user
space) it is not creating an API.

In other words, we could change FIRST_EXTERNAL_VECTOR to 0x1f, and use
it for IRQ_MOVE_CLEANUP_VECTOR. Then use 0x20..0x2f for the legacy vectors.

-hpa
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/