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Date:      Tue, 9 Oct 2001 09:01:05 -0700
From:      Mark Peek <mark@whistle.com>
To:        freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Change to ldscript.i386
Message-ID:  <p05101004b7e8cce4fba6@[207.76.207.129]>
In-Reply-To: <20011008162444.BAD02380F@overcee.netplex.com.au>
References:  <20011008162444.BAD02380F@overcee.netplex.com.au>

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At 9:24 AM -0700 10/8/01, Peter Wemm wrote:
>Using the same next address means that you dont have to put padding in the
>file itself, and can simply double map the same page when loading
>executables.

Thanks for the explanation...it now makes sense why this was done (at 
least for userland executables).

>Anyway, that is why it was done that way.  What is or isn't good for
>application executables doesn't necessarily apply to the kernel since it
>isn't demand paged. 
>
>In the kernel case the larger file size may actually end up using one less
>page of actual memory for the kernel data segment.  However, I seem to
>recall Bruce telling me once that the 4MB page implementation breaks
>something with the text read-only protection, so doing any roundup at all
>is probably futile.

Hmmm, I didn't get a strong sense of "do it" or "don't do it" for 
applying my patch. It sounds like applying it in the kernel ldscript 
(which is what I was looking at) wouldn't hurt.

>Incidently, I have long been tempted to make a similar change to the
>*userland* elf executable layout.  I think this will significantly speed up
>executable exec() times since we wont have to do the silly BSS pre-zero on
>the bounary page, which will case an out-of-order page read.  If the VM
>system supported a "post faultin" callback hook we could avoid that.

This sounds like something to put onto a project list for people to work on.

Mark

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