>The kernel version we are using is 2.4.18 (Redhat 8.0) and the total >amount of memory available in the box is 128MB >Is there any other mechanism to allocate large amount of physically >contiguous memory blocks during normal run time of the driver? Is this >being addressed in later kernels. I regularly use a patch (bigphysarea) recommended by Dolphin for use with their SCI cards. The copy I use is from a relatively old kernel (2.4.4) which applies with a few warnings but is otherwise OK. I did a quick search with Google for bigphysarea linux 2.4.18 and found http://frmb.home.cern.ch/frmb/download/bigphysarea-2.4.18.patch or a more readable page at http://frmb.home.cern.ch/frmb/linux.html which appears to be a version updated for 2.4.18. I believe the original patch is maintained at http://www.uni-paderborn.de/fachbereich/AG/heiss/linux/bigphysarea.html There are apparently several drivers that already use this interface, but it does require a patched kernel. I am not aware of any effort to merge this into the main line kernel (though I would certainly appreciate that). --Mark H Johnson <mailto:Mark_H_Johnson@raytheon.com> -- Kernelnewbies: Help each other learn about the Linux kernel. Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/kernelnewbies/ FAQ: http://kernelnewbies.org/faq/
