Re: [PATCH v8 11/25] gpu: nova-core: mm: Use usable VRAM region for buddy allocator

[Joel Fernandes <joelagnelf@nvidia.com>]

Hi Alex,

On Sun, Mar 01, 2026 at 09:56:30PM +0900, Alexandre Courbot wrote:
> The chain through which we obtain `usable_vram` is very inefficient and
> much more complex than it needs to be.
> [...]
> Which means `boot_params` and `BootParams` can be removed (and the
> `Cell` import), and we have something simpler and more direct that takes
> ~60 less LoCs.

I like the simplification and I've made those changes! Currently testing further.

One concern though (both with the original code and after my changes):
`FbLayout` is ephemeral, it is computed during boot and then thrown away.  I
think the rest of nova-core should be aware of it. Other subsystems may need to
know the FB layout in the future. Of course we can do that later, but maybe it
will be less churn if we store `FbLayout` for longer term reference after boot,
for usage say by future mm code etc. May also help debugging, say debugfs needs
to dump the frame buffer layout etc.

> Correction: patches 3 and 5 won't be needed anymore and can be dropped,> it seems.

Ack, with the simplificiation the extra patches can be dropped.

thanks,

--
Joel Fernandes