Re: [PATCH] x86: unify "numa=" command line option handling

From: Ingo Molnar
Date: Fri Jan 07 2011 - 09:22:18 EST



* Jan Beulich <JBeulich@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> >>> On 07.01.11 at 13:57, Ingo Molnar <mingo@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > * Jan Beulich <JBeulich@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> >> >>> On 07.01.11 at 10:58, David Rientjes <rientjes@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> > On Fri, 7 Jan 2011, Jan Beulich wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> However, the problem my patch addresses has been long standing
> >> >> (I noted it with our .32 based kernel, but according to my looking at
> >> >> the code it would go back to at least .27), so I'd like to ask for it to
> >> >> be merged independently (and I should probably have copied stable
> >> >> too), unless (quite unlikely) Tejun's merge is intended to also be
> >> >> applied to stable kernels.
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> > I don't think this should be targeted to -stable since it's not a bugfix;
> >> > this is adding a feature that allows you to disable acpi parsing of the
> >> > SRAT on i386.
> >>
> >> How is this not a bug fix if it allows a system to boot that previously
> >> didn't?
> >
> > btw., that's an absolutely key piece of information that REALLY should have
> > been
> > included in the changelog of the first patch. It is more important than all
> > of the
> > changelog.
>
> Quoting that text: "In order to be able to suppress the use of SRAT
> tables that 32-bit Linux can't deal with (possibly leading to a non-
> bootable system, without disabling ACPI altogether), move the
> "numa=" option handling to common code."
>
> To me it says just that. And of course, not every system with a
> not understood SRAT would be yielded non-bootable, hence the
> wording "possibly leading to ...".


Your -stable comment above made it appear to me as if you knew about a specific
system that crashed this way? As long as it's only theoretical i'm not sure it
warrants a -stable backport.

Thanks,

Ingo
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