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Andy Whitcroft authored
Sparsemem abstracts the use of discontiguous mem_maps[]. This kind of mem_map[] is needed by discontiguous memory machines (like in the old CONFIG_DISCONTIGMEM case) as well as memory hotplug systems. Sparsemem replaces DISCONTIGMEM when enabled, and it is hoped that it can eventually become a complete replacement. A significant advantage over DISCONTIGMEM is that it's completely separated from CONFIG_NUMA. When producing this patch, it became apparent in that NUMA and DISCONTIG are often confused. Another advantage is that sparse doesn't require each NUMA node's ranges to be contiguous. It can handle overlapping ranges between nodes with no problems, where DISCONTIGMEM currently throws away that memory. Sparsemem uses an array to provide different pfn_to_page() translations for each SECTION_SIZE area of physical memory. This is what allows the mem_map[] to be chopped up. In order to do quick pfn_to_page() operations, the section number of the page is encoded in pag...
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