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Date:      Mon, 31 Mar 2003 02:49:30 -0600 (CST)
From:      Mike Silbersack <silby@silby.com>
To:        Jake Burkholder <jake@locore.ca>
Cc:        cvs-all@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   Re: HEADS UP Re: cvs commit: src/sys/conf options.i386    src/sys/i386/i386 bios.c locore.s machdep.c mpboot.s pmap.c vm86bios.s    vm_machdep.c src/sys/i386/include _types.h bus_at386.h param.h pmap.
Message-ID:  <20030330235551.L8771@odysseus.silby.com>
In-Reply-To: <20030331052928.GC32298@locore.ca>
References:  <200303300524.h2U5Ora7061852@repoman.freebsd.org>    <20030330201113.GA32298@locore.ca><20030330232030.GB32298@locore.ca> <20030331052928.GC32298@locore.ca>

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On Mon, 31 Mar 2003, Jake Burkholder wrote:

> PAE makes the page table entries bigger so they can hold 64 bit physical
> addresses, but it does not give you more of them, pointers are still 32bit.
> On x86 the kernel is mapped into each process' address space, which is why
> it takes a chunk of it, and this is how copyin and copyout work, you can
> just access the current process' address space directly.  All copyin and
> copyout do on x86 is handle page faults due to unmapped user memory, which
> should not normally happen in kernel mode.  If they were separate this would
> be much more complicated, and entering the kernel would require switching
> address space, instead of just increasing the priviledge level.
>
> Jake

Doh, that makes perfect sense, I didn't think it through before asking.

Changing it around to have seperate address spaces sounds like more work
than PAE, now that I think more about it.  I'll just wait for true 64 bit
machines before asking for a large KVA. :)

Thanks for the explanation,

Mike "Silby" Silbersack



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