Gentoo Archives: gentoo-user

From: Alexander Kapshuk <alexander.kapshuk@×××××.com>
To: gottlieb@×××.edu, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@×××××.com>
Cc: gentoo-user@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] re: NX (Execute Disable) protection cannot be enabled: non-PAE kernel! [dmesg]
Date: Wed, 09 Oct 2013 18:57:03
Message-Id: 5255A6FB.3010404@gmail.com
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-user] re: NX (Execute Disable) protection cannot be enabled: non-PAE kernel! [dmesg] by gottlieb@nyu.edu
1 On 10/09/2013 05:17 AM, gottlieb@×××.edu wrote:
2 > On Tue, Oct 08 2013, Alan McKinnon wrote:
3 >
4 >> That is correct, with 3G physica RAM, you will not benefit from using
5 >> PAE at all. I don't think it interferes with anything if you do have it,
6 >> I recall a time when RedHat shipped 32 bit kernels that were PAE-enabled.
7 >>
8 >> Briefly, the way it works is that the kernel assigns blocks of memory to
9 >> different processes. So a single process can still only access 4G of
10 >> memory, but two different process don't anymore have to address the same
11 >> 4G of memory like you must do without PAE. But you still don't get to
12 >> give your 32 bit database more than 4g of RAM
13 > Agreed. Virtual addresses refer to those in the program (really
14 > process). Physical addresses address refer to those in the hardware
15 > (i.e. addresses in the RAM itself). To have a single process able to
16 > access extra memory would be to increase the *virtual* address range.
17 > PAE (*physical* address extension) enables more RAM to be accessed (by
18 > the hardware not by a single process), but does not increase the virtual
19 > address range.
20 >
21 > When pdp-11s added I and D space, that increased the virtual address
22 > range by a factor of two. The I/D bit (instruction/data) was
23 > essentially an extra bit of virtual address.
24 >
25 > allan
26 >
27 Thanks a lot for the explanation. Much appreciated.

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