vma = find_vma(tsk->mm, addr);

Posted on Thu 07 October 2004 by alex in general

I've been delving deeply into the Linux VM subsystem the last few days while trying to debug a problem. Its giving me the opportunity to get a feel for how the virtual memory system goes together. I'm quite enjoying it at the moment because its actually interesting and I'm learning new stuff. Hopefully I'll have a selection of debug patches and gdb macros at the end of it that will make my life easier. In the course of this I've read the Kernel Management Style document which was quite funny. Its not a tech document so I can recommend it to the non-techies if they want to get an idea of what Linus Torvalds is like and why he's respected by the geek legions.

The meal last night was good (as always). TJ went for a healthy stuffed peppers starter with a full on meat salad for the main course. Of course the wine and the bread and butter pudding desert probably brought the health level down a few notches, but its all part of the experience :-)

One item of debate was if it was right for software to permanently alter your hardware. This was in the context of the latest Xbox demo of Star Wars Battlefront href="http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/sep/EpAVlAVpuZDrYOIHtX.php">which
auto-updates the dashboard when the disc is inserted. This can generally makes things interesting if the Xbox has been "chipped". Mufi was of the opinion because 99.99% of chipped Xboxen are chipped so people can pirate games it was acceptable. I'm of the opinion that once you own the hardware you can do what you want with it, and if the
software breaks it without warning thats wrong. Although the issue is pretty peripheral at the moment these sort of things will be more relevant if the push for href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_computing">Trusted
Computing gets further and interferes with what you want to do with your PC.