Jeff, seems that the libata do pio to buffer which was allocated with kmalloc, and under arm arch, the flush_dcache_page() is needed to prevent cache aliasing, the later function calls the page_mapping which falls on PageSlab(page) as the flush_dcache_page() is needed to prevent aliasing, it can be skipped if the page is Slab as such pages are used only by the kernel. here a suggested patch: --- a/drivers/ata/libata-sff.c +++ b/drivers/ata/libata-sff.c @@ -894,7 +894,7 @@ static void ata_pio_sector(struct ata_queued_cmd *qc) do_write); } - if (!do_write) + if (!do_write && !PageSlab(page)) flush_dcache_page(page); saeed On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 4:06 PM, saeed bishara <saeed.bishara@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Hi, > I got the following bug when enabling the VM_DEBGU on 2.6.34-rc6: > > Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000000 > pgd = c0004000 > [00000000] *pgd=00000000 > Internal error: Oops: 805 [#1] > last sysfs file: > Modules linked in: > CPU: 0 Not tainted (2.6.34-rc6-00176-g00047b8-dirty #331) > PC is at flush_dcache_page+0x2c/0xc4 > LR is at ata_pio_sector+0xd8/0x124 > pc : [<c002d30c>] lr : [<c01c29d4>] psr: 20000013 > sp : f5513ee8 ip : 79a50000 fp : 00001ee8 > r10: 00000058 r9 : f54f0000 r8 : 00000000 > r7 : f54f1358 r6 : c03e6b84 r5 : 00000000 r4 : 00000000 > r3 : 00000000 r2 : 00000000 r1 : f54f17b8 r0 : c0ac4e20 > Flags: nzCv IRQs on FIQs on Mode SVC_32 ISA ARM Segment kernel > Control: 10c5387d Table: 00004019 DAC: 00000017 > Process ata/0 (pid: 145, stack limit = 0xf55122f0) > Stack: (0xf5513ee8 to 0xf5514000) > 3ee0: c0ac4e20 c01c29d4 00000009 f54f1358 f54f1358 00000001 > 3f00: c040d18c c01c2ad8 00000005 00000009 f54f0000 c01c3204 c03cfe78 00000000 > 3f20: 00200200 f54f13d4 c00446e4 00000001 f54f1424 00000000 00000000 00000000 > 3f40: 00000000 00000000 ffffffff 00000009 f54f0000 f54f1358 00000001 c040d18c > 3f60: 00000005 0000000a 00001ee8 c01c46d8 f5413c70 f54b5b68 c01c45d4 f54b5b60 > 3f80: f5512000 f5513f9c 00000000 00000000 00000000 c004b2c0 00000000 00000000 > 3fa0: f54be0c0 c004e12c f5513fa8 f5513fa8 f5429ec8 f5513fd4 f5429ec8 f54b5b60 > 3fc0: c004b1c8 00000000 00000000 c004e014 00000000 00000000 f5513fd8 f5513fd8 > 3fe0: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 c0026dec bc7e4afb 6a3a8a30 > [<c002d30c>] (flush_dcache_page+0x2c/0xc4) from [<c01c29d4>] > (ata_pio_sector+0xd8/0x124) > [<c01c29d4>] (ata_pio_sector+0xd8/0x124) from [<c01c2ad8>] > (ata_pio_sectors+0xb8/0xc4) > [<c01c2ad8>] (ata_pio_sectors+0xb8/0xc4) from [<c01c3204>] > (ata_sff_hsm_move+0x618/0x76c) > [<c01c3204>] (ata_sff_hsm_move+0x618/0x76c) from [<c01c46d8>] > (ata_pio_task+0x104/0x124) > [<c01c46d8>] (ata_pio_task+0x104/0x124) from [<c004b2c0>] > (worker_thread+0xf8/0x170) > [<c004b2c0>] (worker_thread+0xf8/0x170) from [<c004e014>] (kthread+0x78/0x80) > [<c004e014>] (kthread+0x78/0x80) from [<c0026dec>] (kernel_thread_exit+0x0/0x8) > Code: e5904010 e3130080 0a000002 e3a03000 (e5833000) > ---[ end trace 8a7ce1ae66250005 ]--- > -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-ide" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html