Re: [PATCH RFC 00/11] mm: distinguish PTE table storage from PTE values

On Tue, Jul 28, 2026 at 09:26:06PM +0200, David Hildenbrand (Arm) wrote:

quoted

The generic definition aliases hw_pte_t to pte_t, so this series preserves
the representation and behaviour of every architecture. ptep_get() keeps
its existing READ_ONCE() semantics and converts the stored element through
__pte_from_hw(). An architecture can later define a distinct hw_pte_t and
convert its PTE interfaces to make the distinction compiler-enforced.
Architecture PTE implementations and most architecture code are
deliberately left for those later opt-in conversions.

...

Do you have a pointer at the arm64 part, so people can get a feeling for how an
actual hw_pte_t implementation can look like.

May be we need the generic hw_pte_t implementation as { pte_t pte; }
right away?

Also, can you envision a case when sizeof(pte_t) != sizeof(hw_pte_t)?
If not, the compile-time check is worth adding.

-- 
Cheers,

David

Thanks!