From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Sat, 23 Nov 2002 20:09:36 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Sat, 23 Nov 2002 20:09:36 -0500 Received: from h-64-105-34-232.SNVACAID.covad.net ([64.105.34.232]:6886 "EHLO freya.yggdrasil.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Sat, 23 Nov 2002 20:09:35 -0500 From: "Adam J. Richter" Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 17:16:32 -0800 Message-Id: <200211240116.RAA19023@adam.yggdrasil.com> To: rth@twiddle.net Subject: Re: [PATCH] modules as shared objects Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Although I remain skeptical that it is net benefit to have the module loader in the kernel, I like the fact that your change is a net deletion of 226 lines, which I think should be reason enough to apply it if it has no disadvantages. I was wondering if there is any other ultimate benefit to your change. Is there something new that it would enable me to do, something that I could do more easily, something that would run faster, consume less memory, etc.? The only thing that comes to mind is perhaps loading certain very well behaved self-contained user level shared libraries, like perhaps some compression, encryption or non-floating-point math functions. Regarding the .init sections, I believe that there are currently no modules with exception table entries pointing into .init. So, if you adopt a policy that the .init section will be loaded contiguously and not dropped if there is an exception table entry pointing into .init, which currently happens ~0% of the time, you allocate init and non-init sections the remaining ~100% of the time. I believe this would allow for allocating smaller non-init sections with kmalloc for better memory efficiency for small modules, which will make it more practical have divide some modules into smaller pieces that aren't always all needed together. I should also check and see if kmalloc returns pointers in the 4MB kernel huge page on x86, which would improve TLB usage. Adam J. Richter __ ______________ 575 Oroville Road adam@yggdrasil.com \ / Milpitas, California 95035 +1 408 309-6081 | g g d r a s i l United States of America "Free Software For The Rest Of Us."