Re: [PATCH 4/4] alpha: Use absolute_pointer for strcmp on fixed memory location

From: Linus Torvalds
Date: Sun Sep 12 2021 - 18:58:59 EST


On Sun, Sep 12, 2021 at 1:37 PM Guenter Roeck <linux@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> COMMAND_LINE is, for whatever reason, defined in
> arch/alpha/include/uapi/asm/setup.h, ie in the uapi.
>
> Can I even touch that ?

I think that's entirely a historical accident.

Note how most of those #define's don't even work for user space
because they use PAGE_OFFSET, which is defined in <asm/page.h>. And
others depend on the kernel config system.

There's a couple that do seem to be potentially for user space (MILO
bootloader), and who knows just what hacks that code might have with
internal knowledge of this header file. But anything I can find on the
net seems to predate our move to 'uapi' headers, so I wouldn't really
worry about it.

So I'd suggest just moving that whole file back to <asm/setup.h>,
changing it as necessary, and then seeing if anybody notices.

Because I suspect the answer to that is just crickets chirping..

Linus