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Date: Mon, 04 Mar 2002 21:34:02 -0800
From: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
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To: Jeff Dike <jdike@karaya.com>
CC: Benjamin LaHaise <bcrl@redhat.com>, Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>,
        linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [RFC] Arch option to touch newly allocated pages
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Jeff Dike wrote:

> bcrl@redhat.com said:
> 
>>From your explanation of things, you only need to do the memsets once
>>at  startup of UML where the ram is allocated -> a uml booted with
>>64MB of  ram would write into every page of the backing store file
>>before even  running the kernel.  Doesn't that accomplish the same
>>thing?
>>
> 
> Sort of, but it's very heavy-handed.  The UML will force memory to be
> allocated on the host long before it will ever be needed, and it may never
> be needed.  This patch doesn't waste memory like that.
> 


This is not necessarily a bad thing, however.  If the user hadn't set up 
enough swap, they're probably better off getting the error message early.

	-hpa



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