From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-ID: <3F5CADD3.2070404@movaris.com> Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2003 09:26:59 -0700 From: Kirk True MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: Differences between VM structs Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-linux-mm@kvack.org Return-Path: To: Kernel Newbies , Linux Memory Manager List List-ID: Hi all, I apologize to ask these questions here, but I got no response from the newbies list... 1. Regarding non-contiguous memory allocation, what is the need to have *virtually* contiguous but not *physically* contiguous pages? 2. UtLVMM says that vmalloc is only used in the kernel for storing swap information - yet it's used by a bunch of drivers which are considered part of the kernel; is it just semantics? 3. Is vmalloc called from user-mode ever? 4. Can you state a succint/brief comparison of the difference between kmalloc, malloc, and vmalloc with usage examples of each? 5. Anonymous memory is memory that is *not* backed by a file, such as the stack or heap space, right? And mmap is called when mapping files into memory, right? The why does mmap deal with anonymous memory (sorry, I'm totally confused here)? TIA! Kirk -- 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/ . Don't email: aart@kvack.org