linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] trim memory not covered by WB MTRRs

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Message-ID: <20070613082258.GG13747@elf.ucw.cz>
Date:	Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:22:58 +0200
From:	Pavel Machek <pavel@....cz>
To:	Ray Lee <ray-lk@...rabbit.org>
Cc:	Jesse Barnes <jesse.barnes@...el.com>,
	Andi Kleen <andi@...stfloor.org>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	Justin Piszcz <jpiszcz@...idpixels.com>,
	"Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@...ssion.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] trim memory not covered by WB MTRRs

Hi!

> >> Panicking when it's not necessary is anti-social. If the kernel can
> >> continue, then it should, unless it's a correctness issue that may
> >> cause data corruption. Given that the kernel can even work around the
> >> problem now, throwing a panic is even less warranted.
> >
> >Printk("*********************** WARNING")
> >
> >is anti-social, too.
> 
> Pavel, this warning isn't even going to print on any of your systems.
> So it's completely different than the straw-man you're proposing (that
> I snipped).
> 
> Look, if you want to argue that the stars should go away, then sure,
> I'm not going to stop you. But panicking over a BIOS misconfiguration
> issue? One that can be corrected by the kernel? That's just plain
> stupid.

Well, either the warning is _really_ important. Then it is not really
warning, but a fatal problem, and we should panic for it (so that user
sees the message) and ask for a command line option (so we really
really know user wants to ignore that warning).

Or it is important but not _that_ important. We have
printk(KERN_EMERG) for that.

Or maybe it is not so important. We have printk(KERN_WARNING) for
that.

Pick one, but doing "KERN_WARNING" level with message
"************************* I'm extremely important warning,
************************** uhuh maybe there is something bad in your
bios but I'm not really sure" is just wrong.

									Pavel
-- 
(english) http://www.livejournal.com/~pavelmachek
(cesky, pictures) http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/picture/horses/blog.html
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