Messages in this thread | | | From | Daniel Barlow <> | Subject | Re: dynamic sysctl registration (pre2.0).4 | Date | 19 May 1996 15:28:40 +0100 |
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In article <CMM-RU.1.5.832390003.tdyas@er6.rutgers.edu>, Tom Dyas <tdyas@eden.rutgers.edu> wrote: >1) My implementation uses slightly less memory and more importantly >avoids invoking kmalloc() to allocate space for the associated
OK, then. Not picking on you specifically, but I'm curious in general. What is so evil about kmalloc? From the 'detached observer' point of view, we seem to have one set of people saying 'kmalloc is fine', one set wishing to rewrite everything to avoid it, and a third set using it but pulling weird stunts with it to reduce the impact of things they consider undesirable (I'm thinking about the skb stuff here).
Is the whole concept of a general memory allocator so deeply inefficient that it should be replaced with a million special-purpose routines, or is the concept fine and the implementation suboptimal? If the former, lets just write our 56-byte block allocator and save a page (well, it might please Paul Gortmaker :-) If the latter, why don't people fix the problem instead of introducing special-purpose workarounds all the time?
I'm not trying to imply there necessarily _are_ any problems with it, I'm just asking why so many people think there are.
Daniel
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