Well, it's better to freeze or trample the machine at boot than to do
it at some random time after boot when there's unwritten data in the
cache...
The point that Ulrich was making was, I think, that Linux should do a
read-modify-read cycle on the highest address *that was specified as
legal* either by the BIOS or by command-line arguments. That will make
problems show up earlier.
I think his suggestion makes sense. Your reply doesn't seem to address
his concern or suggestion, at least as I read it.
michaelkjohnson