Re: is remap_pfn_range should align to 2(n) * (page size) ?

[Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 14 May 2008, zhuzhenhua wrote:
> On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 1:23 AM, Ralf Baechle <ralf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 07:44:06PM +0800, zhuzhenhua wrote:
> > > thanks for your advice, i found in newest kernel version, in some arch ,
> > the
> > > dma_alloc_coherent will call split_page.
> > > because my kernel version is 2.6.14, so i first patch a split_page patch
> > as
> > > follow:
> > >
> > http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/npiggin/patches/lockless/2.6.16-rc5/broken-out/mm-split-highorder.patch
> > >
> > > but it seemes that there is still no split_page in
> > > dma_alloc_coherent/dma_alloc_noncoherent
> > > so i copy from other arch code to arch/mips/mm/dma-noncoherent.c (attach
> > at
> > > the end of mail)
> > > and now my driver just use dma_alloc_coherent malloc 3M directly, and it
> > > seemes ok.
> > > i just wonder why mips arch dma_alloc_coherent/dma_alloc_nocoherent do
> > not
> > > call split_page while other arch calling.
> >
> > I have not identified the waste of memory as a big problem for typical
> > MIPS systems yet.
> >
> > The 3MB requirement of your device is sort of odd because it's not a power
> > of two.  Have you considered splitting the allocation into a 2MB and a 1MB
> > allocation or would that be undersirable?
> >
> 
> Thanks for your reply.
> Our board is for embedded system , It only have 32M sdram and we don't want
> to
>  waste 1M sdram.  My sensor driver need about 2.5xM memory to capture a
> picture
>  by DMA (our DMA controller do not support scatter/gather).
> 
> I also can use bootargs "mem=29M" to keep 3M sdram.  but it's not flexible
> as
> passing a param to driver module(calling dma_alloc_coherent). maybe my
> situation
> is not common for MIPS arch. so that's is no split_page in
> dma_alloc_coherent.
> and now after patch,it seemes ok for me.

One other issue is that bootargs "mem=29M" is guaranteed to give you 3
MiB for your device, while dma_alloc_coherent() may fail if memory is
too fragmented.

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

						Geert

--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
							    -- Linus Torvalds