Re: [Etherboot-developers] Q: USE_LOWMEM_BUFFER?
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From: Eric W B. <ebi...@ln...> - 2002-07-20 18:09:46
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ke...@us... (Ken Yap) writes: > >I'm a little curious about the history of USE_LOWMEM_BUFFER, and > >the reasons for it. The primary reason is that when I start > >compiling I can easily get a huge .bss section, because all of the > >drivers have a seperate transmit buffer. > > > >I'm not advocating reviving USE_LOWMEM_BUFFER but instead looking > >at what it would take to use the old USE_LOWMEM_BUFFER infrastructure > >to have a common transmit buffer. > > USE_LOWMEM_BUFFER is a hack that Klaus Espenlaub created for some 4.x > drivers because at that time Etherboot only had 32kB-- from 0x98000 > upwards. In 5.x by refining mknbi and juggling the segments around I > gave Etherboot 48kB-- from 0x94000 upwards, obviating the need for > USE_LOWMEM_BUFFER which I thought was ugly. > > It would probably be better to rework the means by which drivers get > buffers, possibly by providing a library which returns pointers to a > common buffer area. Then the decision where to put the buffer area is > concentrated in the library, not scattered throughout drivers. Sounds good. But USE_LOWMEM_BUFFER is useful in point out what areas need to be changed. Eric |