Re: [PATCH RFC 01/11] mm: introduce hw_pte_t for PTE table storage

[Anshuman Khandual]

On Mon, Jul 27, 2026 at 05:46:52PM +0100, Muhammad Usama Anjum wrote:
> pte_t is used both for logical PTE values and for entries stored in a PTE
> table, so pte_t * does not distinguish a pointer to a copied value from a
> pointer to table storage.

Should we rather call them as "Linux PTE" and "HW PTE" instead ?

Some like "Logical PTE" does not really sound very clear on what it represents.

> 
> Introduce hw_pte_t as the generic name for a PTE table element. Define it
> as an alias of pte_t by default so architectures retain their existing
> representation and behavior until they opt in to a distinct storage type.

Makes sense.

> 
> Include asm/page.h so pte_t is defined before the generic alias.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Muhammad Usama Anjum <usama.anjum@xxxxxxx>
> ---
>  MAINTAINERS                   |  1 +
>  include/linux/pgtable_types.h | 11 +++++++++++
>  2 files changed, 12 insertions(+)
>  create mode 100644 include/linux/pgtable_types.h
> 
> diff --git a/MAINTAINERS b/MAINTAINERS
> index 15dd00c7ffec5..78aac05949829 100644
> --- a/MAINTAINERS
> +++ b/MAINTAINERS
> @@ -16981,6 +16981,7 @@ F:	include/linux/mmu_notifier.h
>  F:	include/linux/pagewalk.h
>  F:	include/linux/pgalloc.h
>  F:	include/linux/pgtable.h
> +F:	include/linux/pgtable_types.h

s/pgtable_types.h/pgtable_hw_types.h ?

>  F:	include/linux/ptdump.h
>  F:	include/linux/vmpressure.h
>  F:	include/linux/vmstat.h
> diff --git a/include/linux/pgtable_types.h b/include/linux/pgtable_types.h
> new file mode 100644
> index 0000000000000..ed5dba42a4f8c
> --- /dev/null
> +++ b/include/linux/pgtable_types.h
> @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
> +/* SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 */
> +#ifndef _LINUX_PGTABLE_TYPES_H
> +#define _LINUX_PGTABLE_TYPES_H
> +
> +#include <asm/page.h>
> +
> +#ifndef __HAVE_ARCH_HW_PTE_T

__HAVE_ARCH_HW_PTE_T macro is a better approach here or a config ARCH_HAS_HW_PTE_T
based selective platform subscription should be introduced instead ?

> +#define hw_pte_t pte_t
> +#endif
> +
> +#endif /* _LINUX_PGTABLE_TYPES_H */
> -- 
> 2.47.3
>