Re: bootmem allocator

[Ingo Molnar]

* Andi Kleen <andi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> > hm, bootmem allocator is supposed to clear memory. We have a couple 
> > of places that rely on that.
> 
> I was actually considering to change that for the GB pages hugetlbfs 
> patchkit, because memset for 1G is a little slow and not needed (will 
> be cleared later anyways) and it might be a problem for very large 
> systems with a lot of such pages at boot.

changing the default behavior of bootmem alloc to be non-clearing is a 
really bad idea that will only cause unrobustness. The proper approach 
is to add an _opt-in_ API that does not clear memory 
(bootmem_alloc_dontclear() or whatever), available to callers that know 
it for sure that they dont need the clearing.

	Ingo
--
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/