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Re: [PATCH netdev-2.6 7/10] ixgb: Replace kmalloc with vmalloc to alloca

To: Christoph Hellwig <hch@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [PATCH netdev-2.6 7/10] ixgb: Replace kmalloc with vmalloc to allocate driver local data structures
From: Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 13:02:47 -0400
Cc: "Venkatesan, Ganesh" <ganesh.venkatesan@xxxxxxxxx>, netdev <netdev@xxxxxxxxxxx>, Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxx>, William Lee Irwin III <wli@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
In-reply-to: <20041029130817.GA12301@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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Christoph Hellwig wrote:
On Fri, Oct 29, 2004 at 05:50:45AM -0700, Venkatesan, Ganesh wrote:

This is a trade-off between space allocated via kmalloc and vmalloc. My
understanding is that kmalloc space is more limited than vmalloc. Is
this incorrect?


Yes. kmalloc space is only limited by the amount of free memory you have
in your system, vmalloc has very low absolute limits (down to 64MB in
some configurations)..

However, kmalloc() has much lower per-call limits than vmalloc().

I'm interested to see a VM person weigh in on this...

Drivers are certainly allowed to use vmalloc.

        Jeff




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