Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Sat, 20 Apr 2002 05:41:10 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Sat, 20 Apr 2002 05:41:10 -0400 Received: from mail.ocs.com.au ([203.34.97.2]:1287 "HELO mail.ocs.com.au") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id ; Sat, 20 Apr 2002 05:41:09 -0400 X-Mailer: exmh version 2.2 06/23/2000 with nmh-1.0.4 From: Keith Owens To: Alan Cox Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [RFC] 2.5.8 sort kernel tables In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 20 Apr 2002 09:50:53 +0100." Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2002 19:40:57 +1000 Message-ID: <16993.1019295657@ocs3.intra.ocs.com.au> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Sat, 20 Apr 2002 09:50:53 +0100 (BST), Alan Cox wrote: >> It requires extra storage which is unacceptable. The kernel tables >> must be sorted before any code that might take an exception is used. >> The sort must be done very early, before kernel memory management is >> setup. In addition, the kernel stack has a limited size. > >Why not sort them after linking and before you boot the kernel. This sounds >like a job for libbfd after link. I hadn't realised you planned to do the >sort every boot I considered that option but decided it was easier to sort the tables at boot time. Which tables to sort, where they are, the size of each entry, the size and offset of the key in each table are all arch specific. The top level makefile would have to make tmp_vmlinux then ask each arch Makefile to do whatever it needed to convert tmp_vmlinux to vmlinux, using a target specific program. IA64 used to sort its unwind table at boot (ld was buggy at the time) and the overhead was not noticable. PPC already sorts at boot time, I doubt that they notice it. Either option would work but IMHO sorting at boot time is easier to code and maintain. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/