Re: [PATCH -v7 0/35] tip related: not use bootmem for x86

[Benjamin Herrenschmidt]

On Wed, 2010-02-10 at 01:20 -0800, Yinghai Lu wrote:
> 
> The reserve_early() method is list/range based and can handle vast
> amounts of not very fragmented memory - perfect for basically all the
> real bootmem purposes (which is to bootstrap the buddy).
> 
> reserve_early() allocated memory could be freed into the buddy later
> on
> as well. The main reason why bootmem is 'destroyed' during
> free-to-buddy
> is because it has excessive internal bitmaps we want to free. With a
> list/range based reserve_early() mechanism there's no such problem -
> they can linger indefinitely and there's near zero allocation
> management
> overhead. " 

Various archs use lib/lmb.c for representing physical memory and
doing early allocations. Might be something to extend ?

Cheers,
Ben.


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