Hello,

On Friday, June 10, 2011 1:25 PM Alan Cox wrote:

I am curious about one thing

Why do we need this allocator. Why not use allocate_resource and friends.
The kernel generic resource handler already handles object alignment and
subranges. It just seems to be a surplus allocator that could perhaps be
mostly removed by using the kernel resource allocator we already have ?

genalloc was used mainly for historical reasons (in the earlier version we
were looking for direct replacement for first fit allocator).

I plan to replace it with lib/bitmap.c bitmap_* based allocator (similar like
it it is used by dma_declare_coherent_memory() and friends in
drivers/base/dma-coherent.c). We need something really simple for CMA area
management. 

IMHO allocate_resource and friends a bit too heavy here, but good to know 
that such allocator also exists.

Best regards
-- 
Marek Szyprowski
Samsung Poland R&D Center