From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1755434AbXEECLU (ORCPT ); Fri, 4 May 2007 22:11:20 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1755435AbXEECLU (ORCPT ); Fri, 4 May 2007 22:11:20 -0400 Received: from ebiederm.dsl.xmission.com ([166.70.28.69]:56013 "EHLO ebiederm.dsl.xmission.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1755434AbXEECLT (ORCPT ); Fri, 4 May 2007 22:11:19 -0400 From: ebiederm@xmission.com (Eric W. Biederman) To: "H. Peter Anvin" Cc: Jeremy Fitzhardinge , Rusty Russell , Andi Kleen , Linux Kernel Mailing List Subject: Re: [PATCH] i386: always clear bss References: <463AED07.1000505@goop.org> <463B49F0.401@goop.org> <463B5643.1040204@zytor.com> <463B6888.20001@zytor.com> <463B6CCE.4050800@zytor.com> <463BBEEE.3000903@zytor.com> <463BE2C7.9010707@zytor.com> Date: Fri, 04 May 2007 20:11:02 -0600 In-Reply-To: <463BE2C7.9010707@zytor.com> (H. Peter Anvin's message of "Fri, 04 May 2007 18:49:59 -0700") Message-ID: User-Agent: Gnus/5.110006 (No Gnus v0.6) Emacs/21.4 (gnu/linux) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org "H. Peter Anvin" writes: > Eric W. Biederman wrote: >> >> I have this vague memory of liking 0x3c because if we do happen to use >> more room then we intended the consequences are pretty benign. >> >> But that is a pretty minor consequence. >> I meant to say it is a pretty minor consideration. > That's a dangerous assumption (besides, it's likely wrong, since there > are only two unused bytes below it.) Worse case on a modern machine is that we get a messed up screen. The odds of it happening are sufficiently remote that it isn't worth worrying about. Eric