Re: Linux and lots of memory: documentation?

H. Peter Anvin (hpa@transmeta.com)
19 Dec 1998 10:08:37 GMT

Followup to: <19981219115249.A7778@caffeine.ix.net.nz>
By author: Chris Wedgwood <cw@ix.net.nz>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> On Fri, Dec 18, 1998 at 08:10:58PM +0000, Riley Williams wrote:
>
> > If it is a 'done' patch, why isnae it in 2.1.131ac13 ???
>
> Because too many people twiddle with it, their kernel broken and
> presumable Linus got too many "Dear Linus, you probalby don't know
> this, but my kernel can't build. Please help me. Love luser"
>
> > If so, why was it taken out of the kernel?
>
> Because people are dumb
>

The problem was that people thought that they could (should) set it to
a tiny value if they had a small amount of RAM. I suggest it should
be made a multiple-choice CONFIG option instead of a numeric field, OR
it should be a numeric fields but the unit be gigabytes.

-hpa

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