From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from psmtp.com (na3sys010amx104.postini.com [74.125.245.104]) by kanga.kvack.org (Postfix) with SMTP id D30576B004F for ; Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:25:59 -0500 (EST) From: Arnd Bergmann Subject: Re: [RFC 1/3] /dev/low_mem_notify Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:25:55 +0000 References: <1326788038-29141-1-git-send-email-minchan@kernel.org> <20120124154001.GB10990@amt.cnet> <1327420880.13624.24.camel@jaguar> In-Reply-To: <1327420880.13624.24.camel@jaguar> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <201201241625.55295.arnd@arndb.de> Sender: owner-linux-mm@kvack.org List-ID: To: Pekka Enberg Cc: Marcelo Tosatti , Rik van Riel , Minchan Kim , linux-mm , LKML , leonid.moiseichuk@nokia.com, kamezawa.hiroyu@jp.fujitsu.com, mel@csn.ul.ie, rientjes@google.com, KOSAKI Motohiro , Johannes Weiner , Andrew Morton , Ronen Hod , KOSAKI Motohiro On Tuesday 24 January 2012, Pekka Enberg wrote: > On Tue, 2012-01-24 at 13:40 -0200, Marcelo Tosatti wrote: > > What is the practical advantage of a syscall, again? > > Why do you ask? The advantage for this particular case is not needing to > add ioctls() for configuration and keeping the file read/write ABI > simple. The two are obviously equivalent and there is no reason to avoid ioctl in general. However I agree that the syscall would be better in this case, because that is what we tend to use for core kernel functionality, while character devices tend to be used for I/O device drivers that need stuff like enumeration and permission management. Arnd -- To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in the body to majordomo@kvack.org. For more info on Linux MM, see: http://www.linux-mm.org/ . Fight unfair telecom internet charges in Canada: sign http://stopthemeter.ca/ Don't email: email@kvack.org