Re: Reserving physical memory at boot time

H. Peter Anvin (hpa@zytor.com)
5 Mar 2003 07:04:51 -0800


Followup to: <32981.4.64.238.61.1046844111.squirrel@www.osdl.org>
By author: "Randy.Dunlap" <rddunlap@osdl.org>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> OK, with feeling:
>
> I agree with you since the boot protocol is well-defined.
>
> Just to be clear, my comment was referring to
> Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt, not to any C code.
>
> And it would really be helpful to catch issues like this soon
> after they happen...
>

Unfortunately last time I commented on this the response was roughly
"well, the patch already made it into Linus' kernel, it's too late to
fix it now." That isn't exactly a very helpful response.

The mem= parameter has the semantic in the i386/PC boot protocol that
it specifies the top address of the usable memory region that begins
at 0x100000. It's a bit of a wart that the boot loaders have to be
aware of this, but it's so and it's been so for a very long time.

-hpa

-- 
<hpa@transmeta.com> at work, <hpa@zytor.com> in private!
"Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot."
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