From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S263018AbTEGJL7 (ORCPT ); Wed, 7 May 2003 05:11:59 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S263017AbTEGJL7 (ORCPT ); Wed, 7 May 2003 05:11:59 -0400 Received: from wohnheim.fh-wedel.de ([195.37.86.122]:18585 "EHLO wohnheim.fh-wedel.de") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S263018AbTEGJL6 (ORCPT ); Wed, 7 May 2003 05:11:58 -0400 Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 11:23:29 +0200 From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?J=F6rn?= Engel To: Andi Kleen Cc: torvalds@transmeta.com, akpm@digeo.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [PATCH] Fix .altinstructions linking failures Message-ID: <20030507092329.GA2389@wohnheim.fh-wedel.de> References: <20030506063055.GA15424@averell> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit In-Reply-To: <20030506063055.GA15424@averell> User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.28i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Tue, 6 May 2003 08:30:55 +0200, Andi Kleen wrote: > > Some configs didn't link anymore because they got references from > .altinstructions to __exit functions. Fixing it at the linker level > is not easily possible. This patch just discards .text.exit at runtime > instead of link time to avoid this. > > Idea from Andrew Morton. > > It will also fix a related problem with .eh_frame in modern gcc (so far > only observed on x86-64, but could happen on i386 too) But it sure won't make any embedded people happy. This adds .text.exit (and .data.exit?) to the kernel image, which is nothing but unnecessary bloat. Nothing inside those sections is ever used, yet their footprint does hurt on small systems. I've been a bit sceptical of the whole .altinstructions idea, self-modifying code opens a can of worms for anyone trying to do code analysis (coverage, verification,...). But with this followup, I personally pay money to get that stuff ripped out again. Jörn -- The cost of changing business rules is much more expensive for software than for a secretaty. -- unknown